WHEN David Willetts resigned from his cabinet office post in the Autumn, implicitly acknowledging that he had been found 'wanting' in his advisory remarks to the Parliamentary Selection Committee dealing with the Neil Hamilton cash for questions issue, it was alleged that he received a £8,000 golden handshake presumably paid by the taxpayers.

Imagine my surprise watching Newsnight last Friday when he appeared as Chairman of Conservative Research Unit. Are voters expected to understand why a politician, already allegedly found 'wanting' in ethical behaviour, is almost immediately rewarded with the responsibility for disseminating information and statistics through the media which he could so easily distort?

How are the voters to trust him or a government which so generously rewards overweening ambition over and above honesty and morality?

Patricia Wilson,

Yealand Conyers.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.