THE effrontery of Tory MEP, Robert Goodwill takes some believing (Letters, October 8)!

Or perhaps not, in the week when Tory effrontery is the order of each day in Bournemouth, with their leader and others pretending to be staunch supporters of the country's public services, after they spent almost 20 years in government attacking public servants, and running them down.

Mr Goodwill should look to the company his own party has kept over recent years.

The jailbirds and perjurers, former Tory minister Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer, the party's vice-chairman with the latter being proven to be a serial liar.

Given that he mentions Bill Clinton's philandering, I feel free to refer to the self-confessed serial adulterers, Tory ex-ministers Alan Clark and Steven Norris (whom it looks as though the Tories are to run again as candidate to be Mayor of London); and the recently exposed adulterers Tory ex-minister Edwina Currie and former Prime Minister John Major.

Then there's the brown-envelope clutching, "cash for questions" Tory ex-minister Neil Hamilton. I could go on.

Mr Goodwill is right, you can tell a party by the company it keeps.

Sandy Fraser,

Micklegate branch Labour Party campaign organiser,

Millfield Road, York.

Updated: 11:13 Thursday, October 10, 2002