Past Speakers

SIR – My experiences over 32 years as a Commons Clerk, from 1958 to 1991, do not tally with Sir Robert Rhodes James’s criticism of the then Speaker George Thomas (Letters, May 22).

I was the principal, and often only, adviser to many select committee and standing committee chairmen, and was quite often called to advise Speakers, from Morrison to Weatherill.

I was invariably treated with courtesy and respect, certainly by Speaker Thomas and even by such a firebrand scourge of the Royal family as Willie Hamilton. Perhaps I was just lucky or too junior, but I believe not.

Times do seem to have changed. John Rose

Bath, Somerset