MR Robinson (Letters, October 7) takes me to task for a letter about the North West Regional Assembly which I wrote on September 29.

He accused me of "trying to justify the means by which he and other NWRA members were elected to office."

I did no such thing. What I did was to provide a strictly factual answer to an earlier letter asking who had elected the Chairman of the Assembly and who funded it.

That inquiry was from none other than Mr Robinson, who didn't seem to like the strictly factual answer.

If Mr Robinson doesn't think the Assembly under its present constitution is sufficiently democratic, neither do I.

However, it is also a matter of fact that a change to a directly elected Assembly can only come from a "yes" vote in a referendum of the people of the North West and that is currently on hold.

Lastly whilst it is one thing for Mr Robinson to take me to task, it is entirely another for him to state that "Bury, Bolton, Chorley etc., are nothing apart from Greater Manchester satellites" particularly if he wants to have any friends left in those towns.

DEREK BODEN, Leader, North West Regional Assembly, Members Room, Bury Town Hall.