Anne McIntosh showed her loyalty to party

HOW good to read that your columnist Tom Richmond thinks that Thirsk and Malton MP Anne McIntosh is an excellent MP and Parliamentary select committee chairman (The Yorkshire Post, October 18). I believe that an experienced MP is a bonus.

When the de-selection process was ongoing, a lot of people were urged to vote no to Anne and in the final result we were never given any indication of how the vote numbers stacked up.

When it came to the selection of a new member, the meeting was held out of our constituency so therefore several elderly members were unable to register their vote. Why was the meeting not held in the Milton Rooms, Malton? I roughly counted numbers at York Racecourse and I am pretty sure less than 200 bothered to turn up to vote out of an electorate of 550, and once again no figures were given after all the voting – why all the secrecy?

Kevin Hollinrake may be a good and charming man, but it was only due to the integrity and loyalty of Anne McIntosh to the party that she did not resign her seat and trigger a by-election – which a lot of people were urging her to do. Many people believe that she would have won easily as other party voters would have been keen to give the Tories a kicking.