I AM I admit, only an occasional reader of SNJ, although I inherently support your publication as a valuable local service, writes Ian Hood.

More often than not, however, when I do browse the Letters page, I come across a submission from Richard House PhD.

Google tells me that Dr House is an accomplished academic with a number of books to his name.

I confess I haven't read them, but I'm sure all of his publications, which seem to be in his area of expertise around childhood educational psychology, make cogent arguments supporting his beliefs.

How strange it is then, that he doesn't seem able to do the same in his letters on politics.

I've probably read five or six of his submissions to SNJ, and I can't recall a single example of any comment which isn't "superficial spin along with political grandstanding", to quote from his attack on Siobhan Baillie last week.

Indeed the entire letter is bursting with examples of his chosen phrase.

Dr House has perhaps forgotten that the people of Stroud have returned a Conservative MP for forty-nine of the last sixty-four years.

I suspect Siobhan will give Mr Drew a run for his money, despite "the nature of the policies of the party she's representing".

Ian Hood

Whitminster