FRANCIS Lankester is missing the point - the Conservatives can't allow their ever-decreasing membership to choose a party leader and hope to survive as a party allowed to govern Britain. Two forces decide what our Government does these days - global capitalism and a far less powerful but very vocal Liberal elite whose ideas are most strongly represented by the BBC and the Guardian and Observer newspapers.

It's they who battle it out over what legislation get introduced and how 'our' government behaves in practice. There's no way any 'popular' movement would be allowed to interfere in that battle by voting in a party leader who disagreed with the current prevailing power in the world - which since the fall of communism has been American-based fundamentalist capitalism.

That's why you couldn't get a fag-paper between the political 'philosophies' of Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair. They sing from a hymn sheet that was printed in America - and because Tory and old Labour activists can't be trusted to sing along with it, they can't be trusted to have a say in small matters like choosing a leader or deciding what 'their' government does in practice.

JIM EVANS,

Worcester.