Letters

I strongly support the view that the criteria currently used for identifying nonexecutive directors with political parties are too tightly drawn. Any politician who came back with 70 per cent of the canvass card marked 'don't know' would be neither use nor ornament.

What we need to know is what attitudes and broad opinions a non-executive director brings to the job. Any nonexecutive who normally votes for a particular political party should appear in that column for the purpose of this exercise.

Of the non-executives who claim no affiliation, it is inconceivable that most do not hold political views. Since we are dealing in the main with competent people, I conclude that many are intentionally concealing their position or have been misled by the prescribed threshold of activity to give misleading information.

It would be an amazing coincidence if the political distribution of non-executives who declare their affiliation happens to match that of those who do not. I conclude that the published analysis is of little value, and that a more rigorous exercise would be useful.

Councillor Martyn Smith, Sandwell metropolitan borough council, West Midlands.