LETTER : Wales: a challenge for misfits for malcontents A Welsh cornerstone

I AGREE entirely with Joan Smith that John Redwood was a wholly unconvincing potential Prime Minister (the same could be said for the man who beat him), but I am baffled by her way of clinching the argument: "the Welsh Secretary for God's sake" (" 'Apocalypse Now' comes to Miss Marple country", 9 July).

It's true that the office of Welsh Secretary has become one occupied by political malcontents that the Prime Minister of the day can't decide what do with, or by fraudulent practitioners of "consensus" in a country that has rejected their party overwhelmingly. But from another point of view the Secretary of State for Wales has unique powers covering a far wider range of activity than most of his (there has never been a her) Cabinet peers.

Nicholas Murray

Presteigne, Powys