SIR – One really does wonder at the humanity of some people when one reads letters such as that sent by your correspondent Keith Rayner (‘Manpower could be harnessed’, April 7).

In his piece he effectively compares the unemployed with mice, hamsters or laboratory rats running around a wheel in a cage, only in his Utopian world they would be on static cycles generating electrical power for the rest of us.

They would be paid depending on how fast they pedalled and if they chose to take a rest, they wouldn’t be paid, demonising the unemployed as those who choose not to work, the lazy and idle.

Perhaps he might like to meet some of these poor unfortunates, out of work through no fault of their own, to explain his scheme?

But why just target the unemployed, why not anybody drawing any kind of state benefit? Half pay for those claiming housing benefit, quarter for incapacity living allowance qualifiers, minimum wage for mental health sufferers, maybe.

Arthur Waterhouse, Barmby Road, Bradford