RE: “Am I alone in my election despair”, Mann on Friday column, March 26.

I SHARE your concern. Serious polticial discussion is now almost unknown. In my view, this results from the breakdown of the large-scale communities (mining, ship-building, textile workers) which were obliged, by their working experiences, to look for some alternative and found it through unity of action and, to varying degrees, of thought. The latter demanded some degree of political understanding.

The mass lifestyles having gone, the basic thoughts have gone with them (apparently). The necessary motivation, political education, has always been opposed in schools as some sort of threat to public order – a risk to stability. I am old enough to remember the 1945 General Election. Had I ever had children, I would have introduced them to basic political ideas, without influencing them, otherwise than by my own broad social attitudes, day by day. It would not have been difficult to show by example and leave it at that. Now, you and I have to view, with regret, the situation you correctly describe and hope that something better follows.

Alan S Kaye, Mill Road, Marlow.