John Parry's toadying (Argus, June 29) about the new, "tough" Home Secretary's sacking of police chief Paul Whitehouse and his mean-minded and miserable criticism of a popular local MP who dares to challenge the hypocrisy surrounding the whole sorry saga has persuaded me in future to save the 30p I spend on The Argus.

Unlike the ranks of brown-nosing and silent Labour MPs of Sussex who wouldn't challenge the power of the executive in Whitehall and care little for defending integrity in public life, let alone the genuine interests of the community in Sussex, Norman Baker is brave enough to speak out against the knee-jerk hysteria both of the media and government itself.

He was right about Peter Mandelson and he's right about the alarming excesses of David Blunkett.

How can Mr Blunkett possibly have had time to develop a well- thought-out strategy for dealing with the situation in only two weeks? He hasn't even addressed Parliament in his new job.

Has he been to Sussex to canvass the views of the stakeholders - that is, the ratepayers, the workforce and the police authority?

Has he properly reflected on the integrity of the chief constable in not having a choice but to promote officers who had achieved the standards set over three years ago and who remain unconvicted in any court, at some considerable cost to his own reputation and career? He tried to do what is right.

Why did the Home Secretary - whose pathetic need to curry favour with his Daily Mail constituency at the expense of our far more honest and honourable chief constable - not have the common decency to face Mr Whitehouse and at least offer him the opportunity of explanation?

Other than this exceptionally decisive and talented Home Secretary, the only other person capable of leaping to judgement so quickly is John Parry himself, who knows it all. Such "toughness" doesn't impress me. It is not firm management. It is bullying in its worst form.

I take pride in having worked for Paul Whitehouse, even if I find myself in a minority. If I have a criticism of him it is that he has given free reign to officers such as Chief Inspector Stuart Harrison of Hove and Shoreham to fiddle around with his zero policy claptrap, his city-centre ponies, white helmets, street corner pillboxes and so on under the guise of experimenting with "new" ideas. Oh, please...

-Jon Ashe, Ocklynge Road, Eastbourne