February 23, 2001 10:08: CONSERVATIVE MP Cheryl Gillan condemned anti-English remarks made by a Plaid Cymru councillor when she appeared on BBC Television's flagship political programme, Question Time.

Mrs Gillan, who was on a panel with Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock and rising star of the Lib Dems Lembit Opik, said: "If they had been made about an Afro-Caribbean person he would have been up before the race relations people."

The shadow foreign affairs frontbencher, who represents Chesham and Amersham, was able to reveal that like the rest of the panel she had Welsh credentials, having spent the first ten years of her life in Cardiff.

The questions gave her a chance to put in a plug for education in Buckinghamshire and to condemn the Labour government for hypocrisy for first condemning the selective system and then trying to bring it back.

She reminded viewers that her constituents needed their cars and said a windfall tax on petrol companies' profits would hit stability in the business sector.

Speaking to the Bucks Free Press afterwards, Mrs Gillan said that facing the questions was not a problem as a member of the shadow front bench, she is expected to be up to speed on anything.

"You do need to know what is going on as a matter of course as an MP, though I did read the papers more assiduously," she added.

Mrs Gillan described David Dimbleby, who hosts the show, as "a great professional" who went down extremely well with the audience.

She added that she had made a trip to Nancy Kell in Old Amersham to buy the citrus green jacket she wore for the programme.