Sir – I agree totally with the sentiments expressed by Tony Thorn and Jane Butler concerning the reprehensible behaviour of James Arbuthnot, Alton Herald, May 22.
I cannot, however, disagree more with Jane Butler's final sentence when she says she will not be voting this year. This is definitely not the way to solve the present situation.
It has been said that in a democracy a country gets the government it deserves. Could we be suffering from the current wave of self serving greed because too many people did not bother to vote at the last election as they were too busy looking after their own interests?
Is this the result of the "Me first" attitude encouraged in the eighties under Thatcherism and fostered by all subsequent governments so that few people are interested in going into public service and our National Health Service and Social Services are struggling to give the population the services it demands but doesn't want to pay for?
Surely our MPs are only exhibiting the symptoms of a culture which says mat you need to make more out of life than you put in and only fools give something for nothing; a culture which currently means that many local charitable groups and societies are desperately in need of more people to come forward to take part in community activities which are having to be kept going by those volunteers who have already given years of service to their cause?
Not voting could lead to a much worse result than a lot of silly people who have misguidedly thought they could carry on taking from the public purse because no-one was interested enough to monitor their actions; and while the good times lasted no-one really was! Not voting could lead to evil people replacing silly greedy people and I hope we are not yet a country which deserves that.
Not voting is an insult to all those people who, over the years, campaigned and even died for universal sufferage; so that we, in our comfortable times could cast our votes; if we could tear ourselves away from our compulsive shopping, celebrity-watching, football and Reality TV long enough to pencil a cross on a piece of paper. How unlike those in the developing world who understand the value of the right to vote and are prepared to queue for hours and even be bullied or worse to exercise that right!
Not voting could let in politicians whose philosophy is akin to the fascism our parents generation suffered and even died to defeat and an insult to their memory.
We have a chance to prove over the next few months that we are a country which deserves good, honest, caring, honourable government but only if we make some effort to put our own houses in order, alter the prevailing selfish culture and get off our butts to make it happen.
Pat Lerew, Complins, Holybourne