I SEE from your article (Daily Echo, July 5) that Southampton city councillor Royston Smith, pictured, has launched his campaign to be elected as our MP.

But he seems to feel his best qualification is that he was born and bred here and anyone who isn’t born and bred here is somehow less suitable.

There are 73 Conservative MPs in the south east region but only about 24 of them were born in the south east.

Councillor Smith’s own leader was born in London, a great city, but represents a seat in rural Oxfordshire.

What should these “in-comers” do? Go back and represent the places they came from?

To represent Southampton, a great port city whose people have always come from all over the country and all over the world, we need the person and the party with the best arguments and the best policies.

ANN WARDLE, (Southampton resident for 45 years).