I listened with some amusement to the leader of the Tories on the county council having a good old moan on the wireless about the Tory MPs in Norfolk.

Only two were spared his ire.

Some years ago I publicly supported a non-Tory candidate for a local election in Wymondham.

To my surprise I received a letter from a self-appointed legal genius on the local council telling me that I was not allowed to criticise a Tory candidate and I would be banished from membership of the party.

Unfortunately for him I had banished myself from theparty some months previously which said little about their record keeping.

I wrote back explaining his rather embarrassing mistake and telling him in no uncertain terms that bullying members of the public was not the way to win friends and influence people.

He told me that our exchange of letters was to remain private.

I was so terribly upset about this that I inadvertently found my correspondence ended up on my Facebook.

Oopsy daisy, how did that happen.

But this brings up a rather more serious matter. If the local Tory party in Norfolk considers that any person who has ever had anything to do with their party is to be punished by expulsion when may we expect chairman Cliff's scatter gun criticisms of senior Tories in Norfolk to be treated accordingly.