COULD it be the case that Chris Heaton-Harris, MP (No.10 disowns Tory whip accused of ‘McCarthyite’ behaviour, October 25) didn’t manage to learn basic research skills when he was a student at Wolverhampton Polytechnic (now the University of Wolverhampton)?

All the information he appeared to be seeking from Vice-Chancellors, for example “syllabuses and online lectures on Brexit” are, as the word online would surely suggest, readily accessible to Mr Heaton-Harris on his electronic devices. UK universities are not secret organisations and as anybody with children who are this term completing their UCAS applications know, course details, information on academic staff, lecture lists, publications, are, as it were, an open book.

Mr Heaton-Harris could, however, enrol on an Open University course on research skills and make up for his strange unawareness of how and where to find things. Birds sing at dawn: just be awake, then listen and learn!

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH

Bowness Avenue, Headington