SIR – Mr Gary Kibblewhite believes that Mr Robin Walker, our Member of Parliament, has a duty to cast his votes in the House of Commons in accordance with the wishes of his Worcester constituents (Letters, January 16).

This is an inaccurate view of the duties of an MP. An MP is not a delegate, to carry out tamely the wishes of the voters; he is a representative.

Nearly 250 years ago, Edmund Burke wrote “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement, and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.   

Since Mr Walker is a member of the government, his only alternative to supporting the government in last week’s vote was to resign.

Indeed he might have made that choice (although he didn’t).

But to have made that choice, resigned from the government and voted against the Deal because he thought his constituents would wish him to do so would have been a disgraceful dereliction of his true duty, which is to vote according to his own judgement rather than as he thinks his constituents wish.   

If Mr Kibblewhite wants MPs who are poodles, he is living in the wrong country.

PC Thompson

Worcester