Barry Kaye, press officer, Newton Abbot Labour Party, writes:
In his letter, your correspondent Derek Blacker, letters MDA last week, writes according to his calculations that Richard Younger-Ross MP, by the time the next General Election comes around, would have cost the nation since his election in 2001, some £2m in salary and expenses.
He asks what value for money does the nation get for that? For his part, Richard Younger-Ross, in his weekly column, View from Westminster, says (quote) 'that he bores the pants off the readers'.
what do we get for our £2 million invested in the Member for Teignbridge? Most notable is a long series of, in my opinion, inappropriate Parliamentary questions that have had little bearing on the hopes and needs of the people of Teignbridge.
Most notable was his question on Church and State, that Tony Blair, at his last PMQs, dismissed with easy insouciance.
Richard, however, is a member of a political party that owes it's existence in part to the old Liberal Party, a Party that had not held office since Lloyd George was dismissed in 1928.
The Liberal Democrats are too small to form an effective opposition and too small to form an effective protest Party, and Conference plans to cure the nation's ills will never go ahead.
Contrast that with the Labour government, since elected in 1997, Labour has produced a plethora of social contracts with the electorate.
The Conservatives have an agenda to 'save' some £30 billion, which includes cutting the winter fuel allowance and cutting social funding.
Those old enough will remember the 18 years of Tory administration under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, along with the damage done to the social fabric of the nation.
Those younger, considering voting Conservative at the next election, who have no such memories, will be caught in the same old trap of Tory half truths and disingenuous utterances, just be warned.