I READ with interest the letter on February 8 "Labour cheek amazes me" and what immediately came to mind was the phrase "the pot calling the kettle black", and had the same feeling of shock and horror as the author — only my amazement was at Councillor Gwyn Hopkins's lack of memory.

He rattles on at how Plaid had saved the care homes, whereas the true facts of the story are it was a joint effort by all political persuasion. What he has tactfully forgotten to tell the people is the full story and his involvement in the whole process, so I thought I would clarify the whole story from the very beginning.

Once upon a time, Gwyn Hopkins was on the executive board of the county council when Plaid Cymru was in coalition with the Independents. During that time on June 3, 2003, the executive board met and Gwyn was at this meeting, discussing and setting a 10-year policy plan to review all the care homes. They passed recommendations to close Llwyngwern, a care home in my ward in Hendy, and they set a policy of other closures over a 10-year period.

On July 9, 2003, the full council adopted the executive board's recommendations of closures and restructuring of the care home provision across all of Carmarthenshire. Therefore in 2009, county council officers would have been following this policy of closures, and suddenly eight years later when they started approaching the end of the 10-year policy, when officers presented documentation to start consultation of further closures, Gwyn and other long-serving Plaid members had a change of heart and immediately tried to wash their hands, shifting the blame and attacking the current Labour executive board member over the care home closure policies.

And now here we are again in this latest letter where Councillor Gwyn Hopkins tries to claim a sole Plaid victory over saving the care homes. If only he had been bolder and more conscious in 2003 about the care of our elderly, we would not have been in the situation we are during this term where politicians are playing political football with the care of our elderly.

I think the only people who will be amazed at the audacity of certain politicians will be the electorate when they hear the full facts about the whole story.

Councillor Steve Lloyd-Janes