Letter: Yes, sleaze is the real election issue

Letter: Yes, sleaze is the real election issue

Sir: There is a public hunger for parliamentary probity, gravity and responsiveness. This might be a good moment to introduce an Electorate's Charter, like the Patient's Charter, specifying standards of performance. My own profession has chosen this moment to reconsider the Hippocratic Oath. There is another principle by which we are adjured to work: "First, do no harm ..." This should be graven in letters of fire on the minds of parliamentarians too.

The electorate is losing whatever measure of confidence it ever had in Parliament. A reformed and independent second chamber could have as a primary duty the disciplining and surveillance of the Commons.

Dr STEVEN FORD MRCGP

Haydon Bridge, Northumberland