I WAS in the audience on the night of Friday, December 3 for Radio 4's programme Any Questions at Manchester High School for Girls.

It was the night that somebody took to throwing a bucket of farmyard slurry over two panel members, one being Robert Kilroy Silk and the other who was also Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly.

Interestingly enough the school had reported a man hanging round "several hours before" and he had indeed "tried to get tickets to the show". This raises a number of questions.

Why was there not a full scale alert of a possible terrorist threat? The man could quite well have been a terrorist and indeed was reported by the school to have been acting strangely.

The school obviously followed the advice given in the government literature about being vigilant yet events seemed to pass by when the information was passed on to the police.

Another question is would have this man been stopped if he had been carrying an ID card? No certainly not and I'm sure people would take offence at having to produce one in order to sit in an audience.

The idea that government is keen to see a crackdown on terrorism is fanciful when a Cabinet Minister is affected in such an easy attack as this.

I don't know about paying £85 for the cost of an ID card but the entertainment value of a Cabinet Minister having to dodge a slurry attack, well that's another matter.

IAN UPTON, Thomas More Close, Bolton.