John Harris writes that most of the public are not gripped by the coming election (This is a seismic election. So why doesn’t it feel like that? Journal, 25 November). This is because the election is largely being played out in the media rather than in constituencies. If I did not read the paper and watch the TV news I would not even know there was an election on. I have not seen a single poster in anyone’s house window, no canvassers have come to our door, and I had not received a single election leaflet until yesterday, when two arrived.
In my constituency the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens have made a pact to allow a Plaid Cymru candidate to stand unopposed by the other two. This is undemocratic, a scheme cooked up in Westminster, depriving me and others of the opportunity to vote Green. Not one of these parties has deigned to write to voters in this constituency to tell them of this pact; I read about it in the Guardian.
Seismic election, John? You’ve got to be kidding.
Dr Iain Ferris
Pembrey, Carmarthenshire
• John Harris put his finger on such a good question: effectively, why is Labour languishing in the polls when it is promising a “land of milk and honey” for the majority of voters? As he says, there is such a depth of lack of trust in politicians, especially for the older among us, with regard to Labour’s extravagant promises, when we remember the painfully harsh economic lessons of the 1970s and 1980s.
His point about the lack of enthusiasm for Labour’s offering goes deeper, into distrusting politicians’ ability to deliver what they promise. The public understands that top-down control is limited and full of unintended consequences. Even more important, it is depowering and infantilising. This is where Labour’s story could have been different.
The Lib Dems have also missed owning this story. It is about decentralising power, re-empowering communities down to the most local level possible, for as much public spending as possible.
This story of really changing the power structures in our society has the potential to excite people like no other at the moment. More power and responsibility at as local a level as possible, to engage, facilitate, renew, enhance and create real communities. We need a prominent politician to articulate it, to make the vision clear and visible.
Jim Robinson
Withyham, East Sussex
• Your editorial (Orthodoxy claims there is no alternative to help the country. But there is, 23 November) identified a significant issue contributing to the mistrust of politicians and disenchantment with politics in general. Sophisticated modern societies need politically and economically literate electorates capable of making critical evaluations of politicians’ claims, and there is a pressing need for those competences to be developed through the secondary school curriculum.
Tired arguments that their incorporation could foster propagandism are spurious – other humanities subjects require similar skills and are just as open to potential bias, but are long-established curriculum subjects – and a slur against the professionalism of teachers. Stable democracies require well-informed political and economic education just as much as their economic and industrial competitiveness depends on a workforce with a good education in Stem subjects. A reforming government should make this change to the secondary curriculum a priority.
Dr Gerald Dunning
Tonteg, Rhondda Cynon Taf
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