January 19: A charter to keep future MPs on the straight and narrow

THE General Election is drawing ever nearer. Here is my wish list of conditions to be met by all MPs:

To have had a job outside of politics for at least 10 years, at least five of which must have been in the private sector.

To have no other job once elected.

To have no outside sponsorship or affiliation from business, trade unions, charities or any other outside influence. They are elected to represent their constituents and that alone.

For this next Parliament, no one in the Cabinet educated at Oxford or Cambridge! Let the other 99.9 per cent get a look  in.

A certain level of attendance in the Commons to be compulsory.

I said it was a wishlist, but it will only happen in my dreams.

From: Gillian Charters, Forest Moor Road, Knaresborough.

i CAN absolutely understand why C Featherstone (The Yorkshire Post, January 14) is disgusted with many of our current crop of politicians.

However, in this election, there will be a number of ‘other’ parties who are keen to show the electorate that politics don’t need to be ‘business as usual’.

In both Harrogate and Knaresborough and Skipton and Ripon there will be Green  Party candidates standing – and I’m sure there are others elsewhere.

Now a vote for them really will show the current post-holders that the electorate is deeply unhappy with their actions and not merely apathetic.

From: Mr AC Kelly, Appleton Road, Bricknell Avenue, Hull.

I AM afraid that I must take  issue with the article by Martin Green (The Yorkshire Post, January 9) about the Hull City of Culture entitled “Spin It Records”.

An apt title, because it stated that Alan Johnson MP was one of Hull’s famous sons.

This certainly is spin, because Mr Johnson is not from Hull, but a career politician born in London and parachuted into  Hull for a Labour seat in  1997.

Considering his background, which included several prominent Cabinet positions, I suggest that he has done little of any importance for the City of Hull.

In my opinion, the most obvious shortcoming was  his failure to significantly reduce the Humber Bridge tolls, despite the bridge being in his own locality.