IT was Harold Macmillan, that great Tory prime minister, who spoke wistfully about “selling the family silver”.

Well plus ça change, as we say locally.

Our political elite, and I use the phrase ironically, are hell bent on this path.

Next Tuesday they will propose yet another fire sale of assets – the replacement of our chief executive by a joint chief with Wychavon.

It concerns me that this drastic step is to be presented without any obvious attempt to undertake a business/efficiency analysis.

It further concerns me that equally they seem to have no concept of the word ‘alternatives’. This perversion of logic presumably works on the misguided and fallacious principle that ‘there is no alternative’.

Are these people so lacking in vision and dare I say it, civic pride, that they are driving us relentlessly towards a new administrative structure hereinafter called Wychavon and Malvern District Council.

Francis Whiston

Malvern