RIBBLE Valley Conservative MP Nigel Evans has made me feel incredibly ashamed of myself.

Prior to this, I had always considered him to be quite intelligent, if a little misguided in his political beliefs. However, he has now proven himself to be truly naive.

For any politician, let alone such a prominent local MP, to seriously believe that the Liberal Democrats could support something undemocratic is so ludicrous I almost laughed.

What the Liberal Democrats really want is to give full powers of co-decision to the democratically-elected European Parliament. This is to be accompanied by a common electoral system to ensure universal standards of democracy - there are currently 13 systems in use across the EU, and incredibly the UK alone has two.

In addition, the Liberal Democrats propose to make the Council of Ministers more open and accountable. At present, it meets behind closed doors to decide on EU legislation - the only principal legislature in Europe to do so.

M D MILNE, Membership Secretary, Rossendale, Darwen and Blackburn Liberal Democrats, Cloister Drive, Darwen.

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