USING THE RAW election results which you published on Saturday, June 6, I have attempted some arithmetical analysis.

As you said, on Page 7, the Tories have indeed “tightened their grip on the county”.

However, it is not correct to say “majority increases from 44 to 52”.

That is just the number of Tory councillors elected. Their majority has gone up from 14 to 30.

Their 52 seats are 70 per cent of the whole, but the votes cast for them come to only 43.5 per cent of the total.

The Lib Dems, in contrast, got 24 per cent of the votes, but only 13.5 per cent of the seats, and the unfortunate Greens obtained 13.7 per cent of the votes and only two seats.

In the city of Oxford, the effect is reversed. The Tories got 21.4 per cent of the votes cast, and not a single seat.

They should have got three or four of the 16 seats.

Then the city would have more influence on the county council in such matters as the removal of bus stops from Queen Street.

The Pensioners Forum was told by the bus companies that this will happen on Sunday, July 19.

Only 40 per cent of respondents supported the move.

But the councillors have been elected. They do NOT have to take notice of the public now.

MICHAEL HUGH-JONES, Headley Way, Oxford