SIR – The recent news that political party membership has sunk to an all-time low might be bad news for political parties and politicians. It doesn’t, however, necessarily indicate apathy and that large numbers of people don’t have an interest in ‘politics’ or rather the issues affected by politics.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge of political involvement online where large numbers of people are active ‘meeting’/ organising around a wide range of subjects. And they have managed to really make their voices heard about single issues through eg lobby groups such as ‘change.org’ or ‘38degrees.’ The politicians seem slow to ‘get’ this. Recently, Ed Miliband was lamenting that people are turned off politics/politicians through the behaviour in the House Of Commons at ‘Prime Minister’s Question Time’. He got it half right!

Certainly the politicians (many of them!) have a low standing but not the issues which people care about as much as they ever did. And now ordinary individuals and small groups have cottoned on to ways of coming together collectively to actually achieve something effectively.

‘Politics’ is not just about waiting for a vote every five years and it is certainly far too important to be left to politicians!

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose