Oliver Letwin (Sat 21st Feb) likes to tell us that the economy is improving. That’s what the official statistics say, but they can be misleading. Take the employment figures for example. You are counted as employed if you work one hour a week or 80, whether you earn enough to live on or whether you need to visit food banks or receive benefits in order to live. In these days of increasing use of zero hours contracts what exactly do the employment statistics mean?

At least the economy is growing, we are told. Well maybe, but so is inequality. The poor are certainly not better off. Not only are the struggling but they are constantly demonised for situations that in most cases are not of their own making. Contrary to popular belief most people on benefits are either pensioners or working poor.

In a Pastoral Letter on the 2015 General Election the House of Bishops of the Church of England have expressed the hope for political parties to discern "a fresh moral vision of the kind of country we want to be" ahead of the General Election in May of this year. In a pastoral letter to the people and parishes of the Church of England, the Bishops urge Christians to consider the question how can we "build the kind of society which many people say they want but which is not yet being expressed in the vision of any of the parties?"

I challenge Churches of all denominations (why not?) to respond to the Bishops’ call.

For those with computers the press release, with a link to the letter, can be found on the home page of the Church of England website, under ‘In the News’, ‘House of Bishops Pastoral Letter on the 2015 General Election’.

David Smith, Weymouth [address supplied]