18 OCTOBER 1997, Page 36

Sir: Who has ordained that homosexuals, ethnic minorities and young

women should `make the nation's cultural weather' (`Be cooler, gayer and less white', 4 October)? They sound like the very last groups that sensible people would look to for cultural leadership, and I thought an important function of the Conservative party was to defend us from that sort of society. Now New Labour has stolen Conservative eco- nomic clothes, who is going to vote Tory if Conservatives steal Blairite social clothes?

Geoffrey Sampson

Skinvith, Snatt's Road, Ucicfield, Sussex