Letter: Conservatives lack the will to win

Sir: If Mr Atherton had said explicitly, 'We are going to win the next Test match', the selectors would have been justified in asking themselves why they had appointed such an idiot to be captain.

Dare one ask whether the Tory party will accept a similarly absurd statement by Sir Norman Fowler on 28 July? After all, Neil Kinnock survived his 1987 eve-of-poll broadcast statement that 'tomorrow will see the end of Thatcherism', and Alex Salmond has survived his clear assertion that 'Scotland will be free by '93'.

I live in fading hope that political discourse will, some day, be no less sane than that which is the norm in many other areas of life.

Yours sincerely,

ERIC STOCKTON

Sanday, Orkney