According to some politicians standing for national election it is the economy that is the most important issue to address.

Others disagree and say it is the future of the NHS or the size of the national debt or the number of immigrants coming into the country or even, it would appear, how the population of Scotland votes.

Candidates standing in council elections seem to believe the main issues are cycle lanes, 20mph zones or new tourist attractions or more student accommodation and so on.

Each and every one of them is wrong.

The first objective and purpose of any government, both national and local, is to defend and protect the population, but I have yet to see or hear any manifesto promises on that subject. Indeed, the situation is just the opposite.

Locally the last two governments, with seemingly the agreement of local politicians, have emasculated our police force by cutting the numbers of fully trained police officers and replacing them with poorly inducted community support officers.

These men and women may well have a large ‘police’ sign on their uniforms but they are most definitely not police officers and should not be described as such.

They are usually only seen out on our streets in pairs, are conspicuous by their absence whenever ‘the night economy’ in our town and city centres requires sorting out and, according to accounts in the local press, seem to spend an awful lot of their time taking part in ‘meet the public’ events.

Perhaps the answer here would be to declare them all redundant and retrain them as members of the Special Constabulary who are genuine police officers and always on hand to back up their regular colleagues.

This situation is mirrored on the national scene with tens of thousands of members of our professional armed forces being declared redundant and being replaced with part-time, partly trained reservists.

With the best will in the world these people will never be ready to defend our country in an emergency without further training and, by that time they have received it, it will almost certainly be too late to make a difference.

So come on all you politicians, be honest and stuff our letter boxes with pamphlets proclaiming that a vote for you is a vote for ineffective, on the cheap, national defence and local policing.

Eric Waters, Ingleside Crescent, Lancing