Dear Editor,

It was interesting to read the letters of Peter Bloyce and David White in the Gazette October 13.

Peter Bloyce is, of course, correct in his argument that the world will be destroyed by continuous economic growth plans which drive consumerism. But what does he expect?

Politicians are interested in the acquisition of power, status, recognition and in some cases money to satisfy their huge egos. So, their campaigns are designed to attract enough votes to win general elections. Low tax propositions are in effect bribes to the electorate to gain their votes and subsequently the political power they crave. In this country every time there is a general election the party that wins gains power by winning a relatively low percentage of the potential votes.

The current Conservative government won 38 per cent of the votes at the last general election in 2019 which means that 62 per cent of the electorate didn’t vote for them and isn’t represented by the government in parliament. And approximately 33 per cent of the electorate chose not to vote at all. This is the downside of democracy in this country.

Voting is not compulsory, which gives the right wing of the Conservative party and the left wing of the Labour party a golden opportunity to win power, while by default mitigating against the mass of voters in the centre when they gain power.

Radical changes to our first past the post electoral process are required to create the opportunity to move power away from the right and left wing extremes of the two major parties. But who is going to implement that, not the Conservative party or the Labour party that’s for sure.

David White is right. Socialism with high taxes won’t work because self interest will always come before the common interest and common sense. The electorate will always respond to short term self interest Conservative policies that offer jam today and put the future on the back burner will always be popular.

What the world needs is a gentle progressive increase in taxation to pay off debt and a reduction in the production of consumer goods to decrease the growth of global warming, with increased investment in non fossil fuel energy generation programmes and birth control programmes.

This of course needs to happen on a cooperative world wide scale now! Not a chance! Politics, selfishness, short termism and the retention of tribal power rule the world, today and every day.

The outlook for the world’s grand children and great grand children is indeed not good. No surprise I haven’t voted since 1993.

Steve Partridge

Linden Ave

Basingstoke