SIR, Despite being part of a mining family, I am a silent floating voter who has never been affiliated to any political party. I can see them now; I can hear them still, 70 years on, as their hob-nailed boots strike the road as they walked to the train that was to take them to work in the bowels of the earth. My grandfather and his four sons, one of whom was my father, worked underground cutting coal all their working lives. Their mementos being the blue coal dust under their skin from cuts and grazes which were indelible on their face, hands and arms, the dust in their lungs was apparent from their continuous coughing. Up until 1947, my father and most other colliers had to bathe in the galvanised bath in front of the open fire, the water having to be boiled in large kettles. We had no electric kettle in these days. People of my age were the first eligible to vote in the 1952 general election, long before many of the current members of parliament were born. Many of us can still remember the election manifestos of the prospective candidates; the promises, the claims and counter claims. How much better they would do when they were in opposition. We now appear to be governed by champagne socialists who have never known hard times historically, just from information they read. Whilst Conservatives have a lot to answer for, a large number of MPs have only studied politics at universities and schools of economics, the inteligencia. W Barnard (Usk)