JEALOUSY drives yobs. The person who wrote that letter to the Knutsford Guardian on August 13 has had the benefit of a good education, to ask the question 'How many other people would agree with me that to damage the scarecrows of Lower Peover Church Festival is fun?'

The letters that followed would show how outraged the villagers were over this act of vandalism.

But the letter goes on to say that envy and jealousy now rule the world and if we are honest then I'm afraid he or she may be right.

Look what happens to hard-working God-fearing people today.

The next headline to catch my eye was 'Town has a history of greatness.'

In 1948 Knutsford had two cinemas, a dance hall over the Co-op, The Angel Hotel and Royal George.

Church and chapel had youth clubs or guilds for the youth of the town and district and Knutsford only had half the present population.

Turn the page over and we see the ombudsman's damning verdict that the council is guilty of bad management.

Then these same people accuse the Knutsford Guardian of neglecting its duty to inform us of what is going on in the real world. What a travesty of honesty.

Our MP George Osborne tells us that it is not our role to collect money for the local hospice because it should be part of the NHS as funding by donation is too erratic for such a valuable service.

Our money should provide for the patients' welfare. He is quite right of course.

All these things are linked to the forced closure of Bexton Court home for the elderly, while Kilrie Children's Home was sold off by Cheshire County Council for an undisclosed sum.

This was, and is, asset stripping on a grand scale. The Guardian raised our awareness that Macclesfield Borough Council has not maintained the maintaining of records of the money received from developers in section 106 agreements.

So maybe the scarecrows of Lower Peover being vandalised will be a wake-up call to what has been carried out in our name.

The youth need a skate rink and facilities for sport, the elderly and disabled need care, and our traders need CCTV cameras to help the police.

So maybe the idea of regional local government is not such a bad idea. We would get planning control that means just that.

Get rid of corruption at the top until mankind corrupts the new regional government.

I thought we had purged ourselves of sleaze and we could feel safe to sign our letters again, seemingly not.

REG LAWRENCE

Long Lane

Over Peover