ANDREW Martin is surely overly pessimistic in believing that the (mainly) Eton educated cartel that keeps a stranglehold on Westminster can never be broken? (Your Say Nov 19)

Sadly he is not alone.

Half the electorate shares his view and does not bother to vote because they consider it a waste of time, whilst our skewed “ First Past the Post” (FPTP) system enables a party with a minority of votes to govern.

Of course it can be changed. 100 years ago women were disenfranchised.

Back then, they chained themselves to railings, threw themselves in front of the king’s horse, marched in protest and eventually won the right to vote.

Now In the 21st century millions of voters, men and women, feel disenfranchised by the FPTP system, but we should not give up hope of changing it.

How about attracting talented men and women into becoming MPs, to replace the bored offspring of wealthy parents looking for something to do, by paying them the equivalent of what they can earn in business?

Say, £250,000 per annum?

Unite the 15 million OAPs, who still do drag their weary bones along to the polling booth, into a coherent pressure group?

As someone well into old age, I might not see the day when Proportional Representation, or something similar comes into being, but Andrew, do not despair.

If our forebears had thrown in the towel back in Tudor times, someone akin to Henry the Eighth would still be chopping off his wife’s head, and you would be in the stocks for missing church last Sunday.

Rodney Best
Doncaster Road
Wyke Regis
Weymouth