TORY councillor Paul Healey’s arcane and somewhat laboured (forgive the pun!) reference to the American Batman comics may have puzzled many of your readers (“Crime Crusaders ?” Letters, June 4).

I don’t know how many would readily know that Commissioner Gordon was the comic-book police commissioner of Gotham City; indeed I had to look it up on Google myself.

Perhaps Coun Healey’s choice of reading matter explains why, given his oversight of the somewhat calamitous Tory election campaign, he failed to spot that four of his party’s candidates’ nomination forms were invalid, and others were submitted too late.

One does wonder how a party puts itself forward to run the city council when it can’t even get its own nomination processes right.

Incidentally, I am sure that Coun Fitzpatrick, as the Labour nominee to the North Yorkshire Police Authority, will continue the excellent work of her predecessor, Coun Potter, in fighting York’s case for proper policing resources.

And actually, the real threat to policing in the country comes from Coun Healey’s party’s ill-thought out plans to impose Gotham-style, elected police commissioners throughout all police areas, risking politicising the service.

Coun Sandy Fraser (Labour), Micklegate ward and cabinet member for crime and community