SIR - The Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Rev Peter Selby, is very charitable (Worcester News, June 6 ) in attributing John Prescott's 'inappropriate behaviour' to overwork.

Nevertheless, Mr Prescott is not exactly the first person to have erred in the way he did, and it is perhaps right that not much should be made of his affair with his diary secretary.

But where the bishop is undoubtedly right is in asserting that most MPs work too hard. Over many years I have worked with MPs of all the main parties, and with the admirable independent member for the Wyre Forest, and my experience certainly bears out that of the bishop, who himself, as I know from personal experience, works unstintingly on a wide range of matters where both his authority as a Christian leader and his personal courage are extremely valuable.

The popular opinion of MPs is, of course, the exact opposite of the bishop's and dangerously wrong. Wrong because most MPs work very hard indeed in trying to pursue their vision of how our country can be improved; dangerously so because MPs, along with councillors and party workers, are the life blood of our democracy.

Disagree with them by all means, as I frequently do myself, but to rubbish them generally is not only unfair, it is damaging to the health of our democracy. And we should never forget that we owe our freedoms to the fact that we are a democracy.

DAVID TERRY,

Droitwich.