I can understand Barry Norton's reluctance to acknowledge the failure of the West Oxfordshire Conservatives to elect any women to the district council on May 3 (Oxford Mail, May 23).

Instead, he resorts to attacking the Labour Party for failing to fight all the seats in those elections. We are disappointed not to have fought more than we did.

But perhaps Mr Norton has forgotten what tends to happen when a governing party is very unpopular.

Only 11 years ago, at the height of the Tory Government's unpopularity, in West Oxfordshire, one of the safest Conservative Parliamentary seats in the whole of the United Kingdom, the Conservatives did not field candidates in six of the district seats.

Labour fielded candidates in all 17 seats and won in five of them. The Conservatives won only four seats. On the issue of the lack of Tory women, Mr Norton's district councils cabinet record is commendable - three women out of seven members.

But in almost every other case, the Conservative record is very poor, locally and nationally.

In the five district councils and on Oxfordshire County Council, the record of Labour and the Liberal Democrats is a lot better than that of the Conservatives.

The Tory record in West Oxfordshire in terms of women councillors is the worst of all - only 14 per cent of the Conservatives are women.

On Oxfordshire County Council, since 1974, all the Tory leaders have been men, whereas Labour and the Liberal Democrats have each had three women leaders.

In the House of Commons, the Conservatives have 17 women MPs - nine per cent of their total.

The Liberal Democrats have nine women MPs (14 per cent of their total), and Labour have 95 women MPs (27 per cent of their total). There is clearly a long way to go for all parties, but the Conservatives have much further to go.

After all, the Oxford Mail headline on April 10 last year, quoting David Cameron, was - We must pick more women.

BRIAN HODGSON Chairman Witney Constituency Labour Party