Gordon Clack is right about the plight of the islanders of Diego Garcia, a former British colony in the Indian Ocean, who were illegally deported by Harold Wilson's Government so that the United States could use their home as a military base.

There is no doubt, too, that Tony Blair's Government behaved shamefully in ignoring recent legal verdicts which found in favour of the islanders, but this was no mere aberration on his part.

Our Prime Ministers are happy to sound off about human rights when it involves an African country where we and the Americans have no economic or military interests.

But it is a different story as one can see with Saudi Arabia, for example.

In 1994, Mr Blair prepared for power by meeting media mogul Rupert Murdoch's executives on Hayman Island to thrash out a secret deal, in return for gaining the support of Murdoch's newspapers.

If you bear in mind that Mr Murdoch owns the hysterically right-wing, pro-Bush Fox TV network in America and that, for the last 30 years, our Prime Ministers have looked to the States for Murdoch-owned publishing deals and the lecture circuit for their lucrative pension plans, it is hardly surprising that our leaders seem to see us as the 51st State. No doubt it will not be long before David Cameron is jetting off to Murdoch's private island, eh?

After the East German Government criticised the people for the 1953 uprising, poet Bertolt Brecht acidly commented: "Would it not be easier, in that case, for the Government to dissolve the people and elect another?"

In the same spirit, perhaps we should forget the pretence of Labour or the Tories and just elect Rupert Murdoch.

ALAN FISHER, Witney Road, Finstock