IT is no wonder that the turnout for the general election is predicted to be the lowest for years, if events in my area are an indication.

I was minding my own business, trying to pick some news out of the Sunday papers, when a mouse-like rustling came from the letter-box. Lo and behold, the first of the election pamphlets.

Keen to chat to the politician in question, I went out, to find the source of the document getting back into her sparkling red BMW Z3.

Give her some credit, she did wind the window down so that I could have an audience with her, but what happened next galvanised me with disbelief.

"It's not mine, I'm delivering them for someone else a friend," she said.

For friends, I will post letters. For friends, I will pick things up at the shops. However, even for good friends, I will not deliver documents that in some small way are designed to allow them to change the way this country operates without some kind of compelling reason.

I will only do that if I believe in what the friend is doing, believe it passionately and believe in it enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the friend, and argue their case.

The mealy-mouthed attitude that I encountered, where no-one is prepared to stand and be counted, no-one is prepared to be politically incorrect and air their real opinions, is what really is destroying this country.

In a blinding flash of inspiration, I saw that Europe is not a problem; it's a symptom.

If we were prepared to stand up and be counted, say what we think, tell it as it is, Europe would be a minor irrelevance. However, so long as the average Englishman on the street does not stand his ground and say what he believes, it makes little odds if the country is run by the Tories, Labour or Brussels.

I gave the lady back her pamphlet, explaining that if the politician was not prepared to talk to me face-to-face, then I wasn't prepared to let her junk-mail into my house.

Even that wasn't enough to prompt a reaction, just a blank acceptance.

What is going on?

Where are the politicians, who are supposed to represent us? Why should I give my vote to anyone who isn't prepared to ask for it, face to face, and say why I should?

Where has democracy gone, when we don't see our so-called leaders and the opposition is too weak to guarantee democracy?

I don't have the answers to the questions. I am just a citizen trying to make a life for my family and myself.

If there are politicians out there who can do better, then get out here and prove it.

J R Blake, Flackwell Heath