Letter: MPs who travel

Sir: It is offensive and inaccurate to describe under the headline ' 'Freebies' galore for hundreds of MPs' (2 February) that Tony Worthington was 'globe-trotter of the year' with 'trips abroad totalling 36 days flitting between Macedonia, Sudan, the United States, Germany, Sierra Leone and Liberia'. How is a serious MP, let alone an opposition spokesman, supposed to know what they are talking about if they do not travel?

Your three pages of international news and two on Europe could have been written by journalists in London. If you think it worth carrying reports from people in nine countries on one day, try a little respect for an MP in six countries in one year.

Yours with little respect,

PETER BOTTOMLEY

MP for Eltham (Con)

House of Commons

London, SW1

2 March