BEING a fan of Hear All Sides I enjoy the myriad of views and comments by contributors. Many I disagree with but have held back from joining the debates for some time. That changed with comments made by John Gilmore in the letter headed “Britain’s decline” (HAS, May 9).

He has some extreme political views and is entitled to them but his final comments about the present virus epidemic moved me to reply.

He calls out the majority of ordinary, decent, intelligent British people who voted Tory for”kowtowing to the British elite whose stupidity, neglect and arrogance has unnecessarily cost so many lives”. By implication I believe he is accusing the electorate of being implicit in his insulting, ignorant and insensitive remarks of causing many of these deaths.

Mr Gilmore has a set of political beliefs rejected time and again by the British electorate. Never since the 1930s has the Labour Party and its core Socialist objectives been so roundly beaten at the ballot box and this is not good for British politics.

He can only rant at this “ruling elite” and by direct implication the voting public being responsible for all the ills of society.

As a child of the post war years brought up in a lower working class environment, to respect other people and their views, having suffered poverty and deprivation in Darlington, my home town, and worked hard to better myself, gaining an honours degree in criminal justice and raising my standards of living despite many political setbacks of UK governments, I thought long and hard about my reply.

John Walker, Newton Aycliffe.