Barry Kaye, press officer, Newton Abbot Labour Party, of Orchard House, Market Way, Chudleigh, writes:

In every human endeavour, organisation or barrel of apples, there are bound to be a few rotten ones, and our sovereign parliament is sadly no exception – yet, given the size of its membership, happily very few. Its membership in general is made up of hard working, dedicated constituency MPs of all stripes and opinions, serving their community year in and year out to the highest degree, and not for profit.

In the case of the Labour Party, a number of former ministers, who ought to know better, are intending selling their services for large sums of money to parliamentary lobbyists as soon as they are legally able.

This announcement has produced a lot of justifiable anger among the many thousands of hard working, honest Labour activists and supporters, who work their socks off, year in and year out to return a Labour MP. Betrayal is the word that springs to mind.

Those concerned have been quite rightly suspended from the party, and any other like minded ex-minister may be dismissed for bringing the party into disrepute, a just resolution. The vast majority of the Labour Party membership will stand behind this decision in order to help clean up parliament.

It is a sad fact that a small number of certain members from all sides of the House of Commons are involved in this unsavoury business of misusing parliamentary expenses.

Our own incumbent, Richard Younger-Ross MP, has acquired more than £8,000 in a rather eccentric manoeuvre involving a property company in the payment of rent for his London flat, which is funded entirely by the taxpayer through parliament.

Instead of being duty bound to return such profit to the taxpayer, Mr Younger-Ross chose to use this sum for political ends in funding his constituency office, rather than using it for the benefit of the local community. It is notable that the local Liberal Democrat grandees acquiesced to this rather curious arrangement like well rehearsed sheep.

This follows on from the £6,000 wrongly claimed for furnishing his flat. Mr Younger-Ross should be honour bound to repay the entire sum of £8,000, rather than ungraciously agree to repay only half.

Meanwhile back in Tory la la land, large sums of money are filtering down from central office to the constituencies, courtesy of Lord Ashcroft, skewering local democracy.

Those Tories who are gleefully pointing the finger over union funding for the Labour Party, are completely missing the point. Union funding derives from part subscriptions paid by the working membership, hardly in the same league as Lord Ashcroft. In the case of Lord Paul, Labour Party donor, a 'non dom', this is a matter for the party membership.

The Newton Abbot Labour Party, having appointed its new PPC, Patrick Canavan, has a 'clean pair of hands' and is funded entirely by the Newton Abbot Labour Party, which has a modest purse. The Tories and Lib Dems commit huge sums to fund their candidates. But somehow our way is more honourable.THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR ONLINE EDITION