Maybe you were just too honest? (From Gazette Series)

Maybe you were just too honest?

SIR - Liberal Democrat ex-district councillor Chris Galbraith may well have had a 'vote shock' (Gazette, June 18) when he was ousted in the elections but whose fault is that?

Are today's politicians really in touch with the electorate? Unlike the post-World War II days, when the candidate would knock on your door and have an election chat, it is now easier to stick a leaflet through the letter-box and scarper.

That way candidates avoid any confrontation and can get in an extra round of golf. I can't remember the last time a candidate knocked on my door but my letter-box rattles incessantly at election times when they want my vote.

In his election literate Chris Galbraith says that he is proud to be a member of the greenest of the big parties and that the Lib Dems have been addressing problems of the threat to the ozone layer. And, if he were re-elected, he would continue working to ensure that green issues remained high on the political agenda. But do politicians really care?

They try to convince us they do. In recent television adverts - if I only want one cup of tea I am encouraged to boil just enough water for one cup, thereby helping to conserve energy and the ozone layer. I am encouraged to recycle my paper, bottles, tins, plastic containers and to compost my garden waste, all of which I religiously do. But what's the point?

What about the really heavy polluters? The Red Arrows aerobatic and other air displays, grand prix, fireworks. Just watch for the palls of poisonous, polluting carcinogenic smoke given off here at every excuse for a celebration. And what about motorcycle racing, old banger racing and air travel, especially air travel as it is one of the biggest polluters of all and more so if flying at supersonic speeds through the stratosphere. And all for pleasure. The government condones this pollution by not taxing aircraft fuel! So do they really care? I think not.

And I hear no protests against these polluting, carcinogenic activities. But then, they are for our pleasure, so perhaps they don't count.

During World War II we had our backs to the wall. We had severe rationing of food, fuel, clothing, furniture and petrol (if you were licensed to run a car), just to survive. But we did survive. And, if Hitler had invaded Britain, most of us would still have survived. Life would have been different, agreed, but it would have carried on.

But, unlike Hitler's 'occupation' when the ozone layer finally collapses, none of us will survive, whatever party is in power. It protects us from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun, which normally react with the oxygen in the atmosphere, to create it, and in itself is a form of oxygen.

Burn up the oxygen in the atmosphere by pollution and eventually an On the Beac' situation, similar to Neville Shute's nuclear holocaust (where the whole world was destroyed by radiation) will have taken hold throughout the world and by then it will be too late for all of us.

So why did the Lib Dems lose their seat? Could it be that, while claiming to be 'green' and an ozone-protecting party on one side of their election literature, that on the other side they carried a photograph of their candidate lighting a huge air-polluting, if not carcinogenic, beacon (spewing out its pollution for several hours) to celebrate Wotton's 750th charter celebrations? Is it really necessary to celebrate the past with a devise designed to destroy mankind for ever? Because that's what we are doing!

But at least the Lib Dems were honest about their policy on pollution and publicised it with a photograph. Maybe that's why they lost their seat - they were just too honest. Quite a rarity among politicians these days, wouldn't you say?

Thomas Hinder, Westfields, Wotton-under-Edge