THE headline (''Family in feud over through-train'') appearing above your paper's account (July 17) of what I said to reporters after the Lobby Group's press conference on July 16 announcing our submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee is misleading.
My father and I have from time to time discussed various aspects of the Basic Law.
On some, we agree, on others, we disagree. As it happens, we have never discussed the criteria which would enable legislators elected before 1997 to serve in the Legislature after the transfer of sovereignty to China.
In response to questions from reporters, I stressed that I was not prepared to comment on the basis of what my father might have said as I had not myself spoken to him and there were differing reports of what he had said. Both my father and I have had the experience of being misquoted by the press, or had the meaning of what we say distorted by a quote being taken out of context.
I was asked what I thought the criteria for through-train legislators should be. I replied that I agreed with the view which had just been expressed by Anna Wu in the course of the press conference that the criteria should be objective. On ''patriotism''as a criterion, I said that in my view it was not suitable as it was subjective and I gave the examples of President Clinton's stance on the Vietnam war at the time and the post-Tiananmen demonstrations in Hongkong as conduct which some might regard as ''unpatriotic''. That was the principal reason I gave for my view.
Your report does not mention any of this.