Larry Isles (Letters, September 22) is perfectly entitled to his opinions about my politics, friends and letters to The Argus but he ought not to be so sloppy with his facts.

I was not "Arthur Scargill's candidate" at the last election. I have never belonged to his Socialist Labour Party.

I was the candidate for the Socialist Alliance, of which I am a member. This is made up of socialists from a variety of organisations working together to provide an alternative to Labour's Tory policies. An organisation trying to pull together so many groups cannot afford to be "authoritarian".

The letters I write to The Argus are generally signed by myself as an individual, since I am not an elected spokesman for the Socialist Alliance and therefore cannot be said to be its "voice", nor of the Socialist Workers' Party (which I don't belong to either).

Members of the Socialist Alliance are helping to build a broad-based coalition against war that includes a variety of political, social and religious groups with whom we may have many disagreements on other issues. This is hardly the action of an "insular" or "isolationist" organisation. What are you doing to stop the war, Larry?

-Andy Richards, Woodhouse Road, Hove