OUR CHERISHED RIGHTS HAVE BEEN THE RESULT OF A LONG STRUGGLE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Our cherished rights have been the result of a long struggle

Michael Myers (Mailbox, December 29) seems to be mainly concerned over my assertion (First Person, December 11) that "we are a country that belongs to all who live here and where all share equally in deciding its future".

Of course we already have a culture, a good one, and this is important; but it is also important to note that we have fought for it, forged it, and improved it over the centuries, and that a driving perception has been that we all count equally and share equally in taking it further.

So I make my assertion, agreeing with St Thomas Aquinas ("It is through culture that man lives a truly human life."), V S Naipaul ("if a man picks himself up and comes to another country he must meet it halfway"), and especially with Colonel Rainsborough at the Putney Debates, 1647: "...for really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under..."

And please note that the Putney Debates started in St Mary's Church simply because it was convenient. These were secular debates before the General Council of the Army. The demands were political demands from the soldiers addressed to the establishment and the landowners.

We should be teaching our children about the struggle that has gone on to get the rights that we value.

A good overview is the excellent website from the British Library, 2008 exhibition, "Taking Liberties".

Allan Hayes, Leicester