WHAT an extraordinary admission from UK Independence MEP, Jeffrey Titford (letters, December 18) -- that he deals with "committee meetings by having appointed two senior staff...to represent me."

Let readers be under no illusion about what Mr Titford attempts with his carefully chosen and misleading words. You cannot appoint people to represent you at committees. The only people who can be "represented" in committees are MEPs themselves.

Anyone -- including Mr Titford's assistants -- can sit in the audience and take notes and I presume this is what his assistants do.

But this is not "representation" in any meaningful sense of the world and certainly not in the sense that electors voted for in good faith. If Mr Titford is too busy to do his elected job, let him tell us what he is doing.

MICHAEL HINDLEY (former MEP for Lancashire South), Commercial Road, Great Harwood.