PERHAPS the fellow trade unionist members of the Labour Party national executive may wish to reconsider their disgraceful decision when they sit in judgement of the democratically-elected County Durham unitary authority councillors and its former leader who they suspended for carrying out the unanimous instruction of their own local Labour Party to select candidates on merit rather than gender, in accordance with the rule book.

While we locally helped to prevent the national meltdown of Labour Party support in the new unitary authority, they busied themselves with other aims and objectives, rushing through a process that would impress Robert Mugabe.

These good people locally helped fight for Labour and socialist values during the wilderness years of Thatcherism and to achieve and implement national Labour policies and initiatives on a local level upon the Tories' demise.

They have not merely stabbed these lifelong dedicated comrades in the back - they have also stabbed other lifelong socialists like myself in the heart.

Kevin Shaw, Seaham, Co Durham.