YOUR Saturday Soundoff by Mike Bentley sadly departed from the usual high standard of journalism your readers such as me enjoy.

His attack on the Guardian, a newspaper which I have enjoyed reading since 1938 (incidentally the only newspaper at that time which reported the persecution of the Jews in Hitler's Germany) was outrageous (November 13).

I and my Guardian reading friends are not "members of the Public Funded Classes"; indeed I was a solicitor in private practice before I retired.

The so-called middle class lefties should not be the subject of ridicule as they represent the backbone of this country, people who down the years with their liberal and progressive views have made Britain what it is today, a democratic, tolerant, kindly and, largely, classless society.

The Guardian is a totally independent newspaper, fearless in its views unlike most of the other national dailies owned by moguls such as Rupert Murdoch. Is Mike Bentley really suggesting they are superior to the Guardian?

Surely the Guardian was justified in pointing out the dangers to the world of the re-election of George W Bush and the war in Iraq as now revealed in Fallujah.

Richard O Whiting,

Redman Close, York.

Updated: 11:16 Friday, November 26, 2004