RALPH Musgrave (HAS, June 20) makes a very valid point about the extent to which the main political parties represent the views and feelings of the electorate.

If they don’t represent those views and feelings, of course, how in any meaningful sense can we be called a democracy?

One thing the MPs’ expenses scandal has done is to highlight the unbridgeable gulf between MPs and the people they purport to represent.

There is a whole range of issues about which MPs have nothing in common with public opinion: issues such as the need to restore capital punishment and the birching of vicious young criminals, etc.

The stark contrast between the characteristic attitudes of politicians to those issues (complacency and unconcern) and that of ordinary people (intense passion) is an indication of how far down the road towards decadence, dictatorship and bureaucratic unaccountability we’ve gone.

Maybe it’s time for a revolt – to remind our political so-called masters that our views matter and that in a democracy it’s the will of the people that counts.

Tony Kelly, Crook, Co Durham.