HAVING known for weeks that my turn for this column was coming I’ve had the luxury of turning its possible theme over in my mind without writing anything down, so I was delighted to find that the Church of England bishops had been working along the same lines. Download their letter from churchofengland.org/GeneralElection2015

I have serious disagreement with their statement “Adversarial politics, while necessary …” but agree with their conclusion that this “has bequeathed us an adversarial approach to ideas, in which one’s opponents must always be wholly wrong” and agree with almost everything else they say.

“Adversarial politics” should not be necessary! It should go without saying that another person’s ideas may have value. This is the basis of the Quaker way of doing business and of other forms of governance in less so-called "advanced" societies than our own.

So my message is that the natural rules of our local, personal, level of community, common, I believe to all the major religions, namely that we care for each other and for what sort of world we are leaving behind, are not reflected in our current national or international policies.

These play down our common well-being, emphasise our differences, give weight to what is best for one group, one nation, one bloc, one hemisphere, and give too little regard for the feelings of others or the future of our descendants. A more generous spirit in politics would be of benefit to our nation and help towards a more peaceful world.

Peter Copestake,

Skipton Quakers