IN her letter to the Evening Advertiser dated March 9, Mary Ratcliffe despairs at the possibility of the BNP fielding a number of candidates in the Swindon local elections and she asks all the main political parties to confront this menace.

However, I would like to say that in my opinion it is the main political parties, together with woolly headed, middle-class liberal academics and rabid left wingers that have created the conditions in which extremist political movements can flourish.

The three main parties do not listen to the British people, nor do they speak for the large part of the electorate. Issues concerning immigration, crime and punishment and the European Union will be the undoing of the political status quo and give rise to extremism.

FRANCO COLUCCI

Heddington