A SENIOR politician in Flintshire has deactivated her Twitter account after becoming involved in a row over pay and council tax increases.

Christine Jones, who is Flintshire Council’s cabinet member for social services, said she had taken the decision after being subjected to ‘vile’ comments on social media.

The argument began on Wednesday after the Labour politician defended an 8.75 per cent rise for ratepayers, which was voted through by the majority of councillors on Tuesday.

However, the Sealand representative became unhappy when she was asked if the approved budget included money to cover an uplift to their annual salary, which was confirmed by an independent panel this week.

Cllr Jones said she had been left ‘upset’ by some of the comments as the decision over pay was not influenced by councillors.

She said: “It was dreadful and absolutely disgusting. I did not want to discuss the budget on Twitter.

“We’d had enough all day and then someone says, ‘you’ve had this pay rise’ and everyone gets really nasty about it.

“Some of the things they were saying were horrible. They were vile and they were evil.

“It’s not nice when people put untruths about you on there and they don’t even know you.

“We’re councillors and we expect comments back, in fact we’ve had loads back because of the budget, but this was out of order.”

Cllr Jones has been criticised by several social media users after describing one person who asked her about the pay increase as ‘silly’ and blocking several others.

The report which went before full council earlier this week included an amount of £30,000 for member allowances.

It follows the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales choosing to boost basic councillor salaries by more than £260 and by £800 for senior members.

However, Cllr Jones said many politicians in Flintshire had chosen not to accept the rise and made a lobbying visit to the Welsh Government in Cardiff to try and reduce the burden on taxpayers.

She added that when ministers would not provide any extra funding, the authority was left with no choice but to put council tax up in order to protect social care and education.

She said: “We’ve put all included expenditure in whatever it is.

“It’s set by the remuneration panel, but it hasn’t even come before council to receive it.

“We’ve already said we won’t be accepting a pay rise.

“What was decided when it was brought up is that every individual councillor would decide what to do off their own backs.”