Letter: Stating the obvious

DUNCAN Hamilton rather states the obvious (Insight, 8 April). The image of the clergyman issuing electoral instructions from the pulpit always was a mirage anyway.

What Hamilton ignores is social networking. The power of societies, clubs and evening coffee mornings within our churches and mosques is considerable.

The Knights of St Columba delivering a petition on marriage to the Deputy First Minister this week is a case in point. Linked increasingly with electronic social networking, this block vote has the power to lethally damage political parties, and certainly individual politicians.

Alan Clayton, Strachur, Argyll