I often note comments that I’ve given up writing Fletters, and they don’t appear for example in the Guardian.
Its true that I write fewer Fletters now. Partly because there are fewer publications to write them to. NME? Time Out? Partly also because in the era of social media there are other ways to communicate.
However I have had two Fletters in the Guardian this week.
The Fletter on Caroline Lucas applauds her decision to stand down as an MP to spend more time, as Tony Benn noted, doing politics.
Of course Parliament is important even in the debased state of Old Corruption that 13 Tory years of Government have left it in.
However extra-Parliamentary politics, what the Victorians called pressure from without, gives people a chance to campaign and change things more often than putting a cross on a ballot paper from time to time.
An obsessional focus on Parliament and only Parliament won’t change the world
Update
Some further Guardian letters(14th June) on the issue. One urging the importance of standing for election, the other on how problematic this can be with the current electoral system
A very fine Fletter. Much saddened by her decision but she is probably right.