Sir, – After a selection process involving under 600 of the 11,000 odd Conservative electors in Thirsk and Malton, (and an even smaller proportion of the 76,000 total electorate), the prospective parliamentary candidate to replace Anne McIntosh at the next election has been named.

Leaving aside the thought that this process harks back to the days in the early 19th century, when candidates for rotten and pocket boroughs were chosen by a landed minority, I am wondering what the constituents of Thirsk and Malton will gain from this.

I have no political axe to grind, but I have always found our current MP to be responsive and helpful, always answering correspondence promptly, and usually positively, and she has shown interest and support for the various voluntary groups with which I have been associated.

She has built up a wealth of parliamentary experience, following on from her European previous career, and serves usefully as a select committee chairman.

It is ironic, to say the least, that in almost the same week that the Prime Minister re-shuffles his cabinet, to bring fresh female faces into the limelight, one of the senior backbench women is replaced by a middle-aged white male candidate.

I am sure that the man in question, John Hollinrake is sincere in his ambitions, but I doubt that a provincial career estate agent will have as much to offer as his predecessor.

It will take him at least the first session to find the washrooms and an office in the Westminster labyrinth, and I am sure that he will make admirable lobby fodder when the division bell calls him to duty.

I wish the new man well, but I doubt whether I will be persuaded to vote for him, however long he manages to negotiate the slippery path between the demands of his constituency party oligarchy, the demands of the party whips, and his own conscience.

CHRIS PURSER

Sowerby, Thirsk.