29 MAY 2004, Page 29

Noble rot

From Christopher Scanlan Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne (Letters, 22 May) makes two extraordinary claims: firstly that 'every country needs a political class', and secondly that anti-aristocratic, anti-elitist sentiment has precipitated the 'collapse of our political institutions'. The truth is that the decline of the aristocracy simply lifted the veil from our political class, revealing its true nature: an incestuous bartering house for vested interests, founded upon the vanity and ambition of partisan politics. Antielitism and public apathy exist because of the inherent structures of our political system, not vice versa.

Chris Scanlan The Queen's College, Oxford