Letter: MPs' private lives

Sir: Martin Bell, commenting on the BBC's ban on mentioning the private life of Peter Mandelson (Media, 3 November), comments: "Politicians are public figures and actually entitled to very little private life. Their families are entitled to have their privacy respected: but that is another matter." It is not another matter, because public figures are both public figures and members of their own families.

I suggest that if holders of public office, men or women, are not given space for privacy in their personal family and other supportive relationships, all the integrity and purpose with which they entered public life becomes compromised, and we all become the losers.

CHRIS BURTON

Harlow, Essex