SIR - It is worrying when the borough's leaders are more concerned with protecting the reputation of local publicans than facing up to the reality of anti-social behaviour and disorder in our town centres.

The complacency of the council leader never surprises me. But I am concerned when the editor of the local newspaper appears unaware of the seriousness of the problem.

When I was interviewed last weekend by Sky in Twickenham, a group of very young women staggered down London Road from one of the hostelries hopelessly drunk, fighting, swearing at passers-by and generally making a serious, public nuisance of themselves.

Had they not been filmed trying to push their way into another pub they might well have gone on to down another few rounds.

Local residents who are on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour week in and week out are not likely to subscribe to the thesis that the problems are invented by me or whipped up by television crews.

Of course I welcome the modest belated increase in the numbers of local police and PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers). But the council leader is surely aware that PCSOs' contracts currently prevent them from patrolling late at night when they are most needed.

I also welcome the increase of CCTV cameras, but the council leader fails to mention that, over four years after the police minister told me in parliament of the availability of grants for local CCTV systems, the council is still quibbling over responsibility for monitoring the screens.

You invest great faith in the Pubwatch scheme operated by local publicans. I wish I could be so optimistic. After meeting the publicans last year, Cllr Carr and I have been trying to get some action on town centre drinking problems including a code of conduct for licensees and off licences. This would, inter alia, bind publicans to stop discounted cheap drinks, which encourage binge drinking, and not to serve drunks. Despite repeated prompting, the group has not met to discuss future action.

The underlying problem is a big increase in local licensing capacity which has attracted large numbers of drinkers from other parts of west London.

Many are perfectly well behaved, but a minority is not. Now that responsibility for alcohol licensing, as well as entertainment, is being transferred to the council, residents will expect it to get to grips with this problem, not bluster about the borough's image.

Vincent Cable MP Heath Road, Twickenham

Editor's note: If Mr Cable cares to take another look at last week's Comment column, he will find we did indeed accept there was a problem - and as he rightly points out in his penultimate sentence it is caused by a minority - what we did not accept was that it was as bad as was being portrayed in other sectors of the media.