THE behaviour of Children's Minister Margaret Hodge truly exposes the perfidious nature of "New" Labour.

By any standards of decency, she should have been sacked. Instead, she is reported as being supported by the Prime Minister and retains the loyalty of our MP Michael Foster, her Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Mrs Hodge tried to gag a report by the BBC Today programme that dealt with her handling of child abuse allegations in Islington when she was leader of the council there in the 1990s.

Her bungled attempt at a character assassination of a former abuse victim and participant in the Today programme was straight out of the same political gutter that produced the "Walter Mitty" jibe about the late Dr David Kelly.

She described Demetrious Panton as being "an extremely disturbed person".

It was especially malicious when it transpired that this was Mrs Hodge's own judgement, taken without informed advice.

It was also sinister because it resurrected old prejudices about mental illness that once allowed "mad"people to be regarded as less than human and without worth.

The fact that Mr Panton was not "extremely disturbed" and is a philosophy graduate and a government adviser is beside the point.

In defending her, Michael Foster went on the Today programme and emphasised that Mrs Hodge had made her allegation in a "private letter" to the Chairman of the BBC.

The implication was that it should have been a "private" matter and that Mrs Hodge would expect to be taken at her word without question.

That Mr Foster should condone such an act after its nature was exposed was contemptible and unworthy of a Member of Parliament.

PETER NIELSEN,

Worcester.