IT'S never nice to see point-scoring wearing the mask of principled political debate, which is what makes Julie Kirkbride's continuing badgering of Tony Blair so distasteful.
Far from encouraging real debate on the benefits and dangers of the MMR vaccine, Ms Kirkbride's intervention simply fills valuable media space with a very different and far less significant slanging match over the medical decisions of Cabinet Ministers and their families.
No matter whether you support New Labour or not (I belong to a different party), it is an unjustifiable invasion of his children's privacy to press Blair on the medical treatment of his young child.
We all remember the reaction to John Selwyn Gummer's use of his children to prove his faith in British beef during the BSE crisis.
It was cynical to involve children in political publicity stunts then, and it remains so when Ms Kirkbride does the same.
Instead of using her journalistic skills to get her face into her constituents' newspapers, Julie Kirkbride should take on the far more difficult task of presenting substantial arguments in Parliament and the media. That is the job she is already paid for as an MP.
With this last thought in mind, we could ask whether she gave the £1,750 for appearing on Channel Four's Power House programme to help research into the effect of the MMR vaccine or maybe that would be an invasion of Ms Kirkbride's privacy.
DR COLIN TYLER, Beverley, Hull, Yorkshire.
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