A street demonstration usually arises when people who disagree with a law passed by a ruling political party wish to have their voices heard. It’s the only way they can!

The points the demonstrators wish to make come after the political debating has ended (Sarah Wollaston, please note, because in her article she asks what has become of political debate?) It’s too late once the subject has passed into law, and that law is proving very unpopular with the people it affects.

When they regard that law as being responsible for around 120,000 deaths, then painting the fact on the lid of a replica coffin for all the world to see would seem a very appropriate way to demonstrate its unpopularity. After all coffins and a huge number of deaths would seem to have something in common. But it’s the law’s unpopularity the people were demonstrating against in Totnes: it was not a personal attack being made on the personal representative of the government who passed it, as our MP would have us believe.

Clearly Dr Wollaston didn’t bother to read the coffin lid’s message. If she did, then she didn’t take it on board.

When the replica coffin was left outside her constituency office in Totnes, in her mind this appears to have become a death threat, or at least a threat of personal violence. “Oh! Poor me! I’ve got these dreadful, dangerous, members of the Labour Party in my constituency, leaving me a coffin which can only mean they want to do me harm!”

That seems to be her message about this demonstration, totally ignoring the topic of the event, which she dismisses as fake news.

Dr Wollaston then tells us about the politicians who have been injured or killed in their line of duty in recent years, and that MP Jo Cox was murdered outside her constituency office.

However, Jo Cox was a very active, high-flying Labour MP, who was attacked and killed by a solitary, middle-aged male who belonged to an extreme right-wing group and who was, more likely than not, a Tory voter. Certainly not a member of the Labour Party.

She goes on to say, and I quote: “As the Labour Party will have been aware from the press, security services have intercepted two further plots to murder female MPs this year alone.”She further writes: “There is a danger in whipping up hatred and deliberately targeting an individual using the imagery of death alongside inflammatory slogans. Fake news plastered on coffins increase the risk of actual violence.”

So there we have it! Dr Wollaston has ignored the demonstration’s theme written on the coffin lids for everyone to see, and twisted the meaning of the presence of coffins to mean that the local Labour voters are out to do her harm. She has even tried to twist what was written on the lids as “fake news and dodgy statistics”.

And that comes from a member of the party which has just been found guilty of doing exactly that themselves, in collaboration with the NHS, for the past 10 years. This is in the matter of the contaminated blood they purchased from the US and gave to UK haemophiliacs as transfusions, bringing about thousands of deaths from HIV and hepatitis, among other blood-born diseases. Not fake news and dodgy statistics, Sarah! Facts.

I’d like to point out to Dr Wollaston that there were many people taking part in that demonstration in Totnes who were not Labour supporters.

Many were just ordinary constituency members who are sick to death of this Govern­ment’s policies of robbing the poor by cutting their benefits to give to their rich pals by way of reducing their tax burdens.

There were people, also, who are utterly tired of being lectured to by Sarah Wollaston when she should be listening to their problems and grievances. She is becoming known in the constituency as the MP who never listens.

I am speaking from my own observations in writing this comment on her article in the paper. I am not a member of the Labour Party, and even voted for Dr Wollaston when she first stood for election. Just the once!

Jill Murray

Churchfields, Dartmouth