"You must treat others with respect," says clause 3.1 of the local government code of conduct – but apparently Lib Dem councillor Jenny Davies hasn't read it, if her high-handed response to a constituent is anything to go by.
"Dear whoever-you-are," began Davies's reply to a letter from Luton resident John Shakespeare that referred to an article in the Sun. "I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. I do not and would not read the Sun - indeed I would not give houseroom to that disgusting piece of lavatory paper."
But her outrage shouldn't be surprising. An undignified spat with an angry constituent is a rite of passage for many local politicians. Take, for instance, the curious case of polymath Marc Scaife, a Carmarthen councillor and trombonist with Burry Port Town Band.
"Listen very fucking carefully," he advised a local teenager who had pulled out of the band's performance at the 2009 Libyan international festival of military music. Explaining that his no-show would result in visa complications for the rest of the band, Scaife concluded: "Wise up, shithead."
MPs aren't averse to scrapping with constituents either. "Just a sort of bigoted woman," was how Gordon Brown notoriously termed Gillian Duffy during the last general election. Essex MP Bob Russell told Colchester resident Garry Burbage to "get a life and stop whingeing" when Burbage wrote to him asking why taxpayers' money would be spent on the royal wedding.
But top prize goes to Australian MP Gordon Bilney. After being voted out of office in 1996, the Labor politician told a local committee: "I need no longer be polite to the nincompoops, bigots, curmudgeons and twerps who infest local government bodies and committees such |as yours."
