Letter: Quango credibility

Sir: Jack Straw has said that the Labour Party would like to see unaccountable, unelected quangos replaced by elected regional authorities. The Liberal Democrats agree with Mr Straw that quangos stuffed full of Tory placemen who do not have the support or the confidence of the electorate are no way to run a country. But their replacement by regional authorities on which a party with only minority electoral support has a majority

of seats cannot be much better.

Labour's bleating about undemocratic quangos will only have credibility if their proposed replacement is a regional government which is known to have majority support behind it, because it has been elected under a system of proportional representation.

Yours faithfully,

DAVID RENDEL

MP for Newbury (Lib Dem)

House of Commons

London, SW1

The writer is local government spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.