HERE are some straightforward questions for Mike Foster at election time. The answers should be of interest and concern to everyone in Worcester and the rest of the country.

Why should the electorate of Worcester believe your claims to represent a party that supports education, almost above everything else, when the future of secondary provision on the Westside is being decided in the Public Relations department of Tesco?

Are you and the New Labour government unable, or unwilling, to provide the sort of "state of the art" school that Tesco claims to be able to? If so, why? Can Tony Blair's recent rhetoric about supermarkets having farmers in an armlock be applied equally to national and local government?

PAUL SAUNDERS, Worcester.