DEAR oh dear.

Exactly what do we pay our elected representatives for, I wonder?

Of course, that question is entirely rhetorical – we pay them to do their jobs, preferably quietly and efficiently.

But in my humble opinion, we do not pay them to have unseemly spats on Twitter.

And yet that is exactly what we had last week when Antoinette Sandbach, the Conservative MP for Eddisbury (the part of Cheshire that includes bits of Northwich, Crewe, Nantwich, Chester and all of Winsford) took to social media to have a pop at an old favourite of Fly in the Ointment – Police and Crime Commissioner David Keane.

What sparked the row, as far as I can work out, was a vile piece of abuse sent to Ms Sandbach, apparently from a hunt protestor. (I have read the post that contained the abusive letter and it is truly disgraceful, so bad in fact it has quite rightly been reported to the police).

But as part of the Twitter thread, she claimed Mr Keane failed to condemn the abuse and asked what it said about his attitude towards women's safety, adding the hashtag #notfitbeinpost.

Strong stuff from Ms Sandbach who in an earlier post said: "Sadly #Labour police and crime commissioner is stirring this issue up [hunting] and refused to acknowledge the intimidation and threats to my constituents from [hunt] saboteurs. Perhaps he will take those threats seriously now as it’s not a coincidence."

Regular readers of this column will know we covered the divisve topic of hunting and the response of Cheshire Police last week with PCC Keane asking the trail hunts in the county to comply with a set of conditions in a bid to ensure public safety.

And he continued that theme when he replied to Ms Sandbach saying: "Your further comments appear misinformed and unfair. The [hunting] independent review and public scrutiny meeting recognised views of all and made clear recommendations to prevent crime and support all involved to stay within the law."

He also stated there was an open invitation to Ms Sandbach to discuss her concerns with him but he also accused her of letting down her constituents by sending an unelected representative to a meeting he arranged with 11 of the region's MPs and said 'it feels like a complete dereliction of duty'.

I'm not getting in to a moral argument here about the rights and wrongs of hunting but I feel it is right to question the rights and wrongs of an MP and a Police and Crime Commissioner washing their dirty linen in public.

As I said earlier, this is not what you are paid to do. Please put a bit more time and effort into resolving your differences in a manner that's a little more civilised and grown up.

It's the least we can expect from you. I look forward to seeing your joint press release in the coming weeks – and not on Twitter.

Yes, I know I've moaned about the problems of traffic in the town before but that's usually to do with the morning and evening commute that takes me over the nightmare that is Bridge Foot.

But I'm returning to the subject again after two unpleasant experiences recently that are neither Bridge Foot nor rush hour related.

A couple of weeks ago, I was persuaded it was a good idea to 'nip' to Marks and Spencer at Gemini and then on to the town centre.

Now this was on a Sunday, the day of the week when you would quite reasonably expect the traffic to be light.

Not so.

Traffic jams on Cromwell Avenue; traffic at a standstill trying to get on and off the Marks and Ikea car parks; queueing traffic on Winwick Road.

Everywhere you turned was busy. This needs sorting.

And then last week, I made the somewhat rash decision to 'nip' to the Riverside Retail Park in the town centre. I've got to say, the place wasn't that busy with plenty of spaces on the car park.

Why then did it take me 35 minutes to get off the car park and back on to the main road at Bridge Foot?

Two things are certain. The first is I won't be 'nipping' anywhere any time soon and frankly, I very much doubt I will be shopping at Riverside again.