MY APOLOGIES to Robin Le Mare (Letters, December 12, ‘It’s today!’) for the glaring typo’ in my letter of December 5 ('Make sure you use your vote'). Of course the election date should have read December 12.

Lesson learned: never again to send an email at 2am after being kept awake worrying about such trivial things as the social and political future for my grandchildren or getting angry about the verbose politicians talking over each other on “Question Time”.

Robin chose to highlight my obvious, world-shattering mistake caused by tiredness. I would rather he had commented on the substance of the letter, agreed or disagreed, but at least debated the serious issues raised. C’est la vie.

We now have a new, democratically elected Government which has promised such a lot, so let’s keep a check on how many of the pre-election pledges will be kept. Only time will tell if the standard of living for the 95 per cent of us will be improved or further reduced; likewise our public services. Will Brexiteers finally discover the true contents of the EU deal they have so comprehensively voted for?

Will Government take early and positive punitive action to reverse the scientifically proven global climate chaos? Will it ensure multinational companies in all sectors pay very heavily for the irreversible pollution they are causing before sharing their profits with greedy investors? Will Britain lead the way and substantially penalise creative accounting to avoid company debts?

Will this Government stop pretending that the NHS (including pharmaceuticals and out-sourcing of minor operations) is safe as an entity and prevent further sneaky privatisation via the back door to consultancies?

Will the governments of the world listen to the words of a bright young child who is rightly worried about the future of the planet she will have to inhabit, or continue to patronise her uncomfortable truths?

We cannot continue to blithely ignore these issues in favour of selfish personal gain; this is not the meaning of life. Even belligerent people who strenuously deny that these problems are not of any consequence or concern will eventually be affected personally in some way. Where will they stand when it is too late?

So, Mr Le Mare, these are just a few of the many things I worry about to the detriment of sleep. I can cope with the ignominy of making the odd typo if my words at least strike resonance with a few readers and the message of honesty and equitability in politics slowly filters out.

Modern society cannot continue with selfish lifestyles and corrosive politics. We all need to change our attitudes and at least think about what we do with the next car purchase, and how we can reduce the waste and over-wrapping on our grossly inflated supermarket spending and on our fuel consumption?

Maybe we should now concentrate on campaigning to get our electoral voting system put on a fairer footing, but there’s fat chance of that happening for the next five years.

We should at least we try to improve the quality of politics and make politicians more accountable to the public. It would be really nice not to worry about such things. Mr Le Mare, but it seems a lot of people are able to do that quite comfortably.

Roy Wilcock

Kendal