DR Chowns, in her plug for the Green Party and the King (Letters, November 16) reminds us that we all want a future of energy security, secure jobs and lower household bills.

The solution, she tells us, lies in the availability of “abundant renewable energy”

as well as a programme of home insulation. The home insulation aspiration cannot be faulted (and has been in progress for decades) but what is the source of her “cheap and abundant renewable energy”? There is no such thing as “cheap” energy. Its price is determined by a world market.

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If her party dreams of the country being entirely self-sufficient in energy provision from within our own borders, she should be candid about its source: it would be from a countryside entirely populated by wind turbines and, to cater for those windless days, gas from beneath our feet in, as yet, unexploited formations. If Dr Chowns favoured exclusively the latter, she would get my vote.

The “good jobs” she forecasts as a result of Green Party policies would be considerable in number but less satisfying and financially rewarding than many might imagine.

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Farmers, denied diesel-powered machinery, would certainly want plenty of unskilled labour to plough the fields and sow and reap the crops, and would require such labour all year round, not just spring and summer.

Manufacturers (those that remained) would need a large unskilled and low-paid labouring workforce to replace the plant and machinery hitherto powered by oil and gas.

One hopes and expects that an Ellie Chowns MP would be eager to lead the way into the fields and factories at dawn each day and in all weathers to demonstrate the Green way of life and would not hide behind the walls of a comfortable (and warm) office in Westminster.

STEPHEN J WEST-ORAM

Stretton Grandison