I WRITE in response to AE Hoult’s letter, English apathy, (Standard, June 5) in which disgust is expressed at low voter turnout. The figure quoted is 37 per cent, which would make it just one percentage point lower than the highest ever overall turnout at an election for the European Parliament in this country, in 2004.

To refer to two World Wars in the context of the European elections is confusing and misleading. The first European Parliamentary elections were not until 1979 and it is quite a stretch to suggest that millions died in order that we may be left with an unwieldy government in Brussels.

I am also a member of the Royal British Legion and a former member of the Armed Forces, and the democracy fought for is the sort where each citizen with the vote has the freedom to cast it in any direction, or not at all.

It is also worth remembering that this is a privilege accorded to all British people, not just the English, and that the overall turnout at the last General Election was 65 per cent. Any lack of interest in the activities of a group of little-known and distant politicians has little or no correlation with the public mood as the anniversaries of the outbreak of the First World War and D-Day are commemorated.

CHARLES MALET

Charlton Abbots