DEAR EDITOR, - I think the Simon E. Davies (Letters, April 27th) is getting confused. He complains that the attempt by four county councillors, including myself, to remove Cllr John Griffiths from the vice-chairmanship of the children and young persons scrutiny committee, on account of his publicly-expressed view on corporal punishment for children, is 'an insult to free speech and an attack on democracy'.

For good measure, he throws in a mention of Orwell's 1984 and the thought police. The position is that Cllr Griffiths was elected to the vice-chairmanship of this committee at last year's agm.

He therefore speaks with the authority of the council and, as the committee is, among other things, responsible for the council's child protection policies, the four of us who signed the notice of motion felt that his views were incompatible with his official position.

If Cllr Griffiths was an ordinary, bog-standard councillor his views would be a matter between himself and his electorate.

I notice that Mr Davies is the agent for the UKIP candidate at the forthcoming election. If his candidate was to go about promoting greater European integration - contrary to party policy - he would promptly find himself deselected.

Would that be an infringement of his right to freedom of expression?

Of course not!

It would merely indicate that it was not acceptable to hold those views AND be a UKIP candidate.

Once you speak on behalf of a group; be it a political party or a local authority, you have to temper what you say to take account of other members' views.

In this case, the four of us have exercised our right to freely express our disapproval of what Cllr Griffiths, as vice-chairman of the children's committee, had to say about corporal punishment.

It will be interesting to see how many members of the Independent Political (sic) Group agree with us when the matter is put to the vote.

MIKE STODDART, Court Farm, Liddeston, Milford Haven.