Spectator letters: Ukip voters, royal tartans and a challenge for Dot Wordsworth

Don’t condescend to us

Sir: How amazing that so many politicians are surprised by the message that there is dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and that this finds expression through rejection of the established political players (‘Ukip’s triumph’, 24 May). Fortunately for them there were few elections in the rural districts, or the message would have been even worse.

Since the inception of the National Planning Policy Framework there has been a relentless attack upon the integrity of market towns and villages, on the greenbelt, and on the fabric of the English countryside. Democracy has been trampled on by an unholy alliance between the vested interests of some politicians and the mammoths of the construction industry. This has not resulted in affordable housing for the young rural dispossessed, but with disfiguring rashes of identikit houses and endless ruinous squabbles between the construction industry and local communities.

Our advice to politicians of every hue is to listen to us. Don’t pretend to give us localism and democracy and then trample all over us and our opinions. Don’t call us names and condescend to us. We gave you power, and through the ballot box we can take it away. If you learn nothing else from the experience of the elections of 2014, then learn this.
Jenny Unsworth,
Congleton, Cheshire

Why I voted Ukip

Sir: I agree with Peter Oborne’s every word about Ukip, its leader and his achievements in restoring politics to ordinary people.

I am a black woman who has been living in the East Midlands for almost 30 years. I am now a Ukip voter for all of the reasons identified by Mr Oborne — the fact that Mr Farage has singlehandedly restored ‘passion, genuine debate and meaning to politics … Singlehandedly, he has reinvented British democracy.