I REFER to your article about Sally Carpenter crossing the floor to join the Poole People’s Party (Daily Echo, November 27).

I quote Sally Carpenter: “People have the right to expect councillors they elect to act in their collective best interests”. Who could argue with the principle of that statement? Precisely what Sally might think are the “collective best interests” will be open to debate I’m sure. A significant “collective best interest” is for her constituents to know they have a councillor returned by the democratic process who honours the process by which she was returned.

There is no honour in the action taken by Sally Carpenter. She dishonours all her constituents, the party and group she was a member of and too the group she is now joining.

My observations are not necessarily a criticism of her new opinions, just the cheap way she has gone about expressing them.

If Sally now stands in a different place politically and with a different agenda on local issues, fine. But honour the process and your constituents.

Stand down and force a by-election, thereby empowering the people whose “best collective interests” you say you are so concerned about.

If she is then returned as a Poole People’s Party constitutionally elected member, that will give her great strength and her new party some ethical standing. As things are, the whole sorry saga will only serve to further undermine the democratic process.

ROGER ALLEN, Lindsay Road, Poole