Good on Shaniya Odulawa for expressing the views of many young people about politics (I never thought I’d abstain from voting, but many young people will – and can you blame us?, 21 June). I share her feelings about Brexit. But what options do we have? Young people have the option to oust the present government – surely that alone is enough to vote, albeit grudgingly, for a Labour government? It’s not all about the leader, it’s about what Labour will do on the ground if elected. There will be a new feeling of optimism and actual change, which is impossible to imagine, given how we have lived for the last 14 years. I must vote. I am 68 years old. The Equality and Franchise Act 1928 gave women over 21 the right to vote for the first time. This meant 15 million women could vote. My mother was born two years after that act and it was drilled into me by her that women fought for us to have that right to vote, so I must exercise it. I have a 24-year-old daughter and I empathise with everything Shaniya has so eloquently said. But the bottom line is: use your vote – a different government must be better than the one we have now. Jane Newman London While I sympathise with the disillusionment and frustration clearly articulated by Shaniya Odulawa, I would respectfully say to her, and the rest of her generation, you must vote. Why? Because politicians will always pander to those groups whom they believe will put or keep them in power. The triple lock on pensions is due to the fact that most pensioners vote; the lack of attention to the needs and interests of younger generations is due to the fact that they don’t. Remember, extremists always vote. If you really can’t support anyone, spoil your ballot paper – but in your own interests and those of democracy, let the record show that you voted. Politicians of all stripes read those statistics carefully. Sheila Baron Southampton I joined the Wembley South (Labour party) Young Socialists in 1960 and stood on my grandfather’s stepladder outside Woolworth’s on the high road with a loudhailer shouting: “Kick out the Tories”. I went on to be a councillor, an agent in a dozen elections, delivering and door-knocking more decades than I can remember, and manned polling stations (my favourite job on election days). I never expected things to be worse by the time I reached 80 and, believe me, they are, in all too many ways. I will cast my postal vote, and for the first time it will be for the Green party instead of Labour. I share all of Shaniya’s frustrations. My generation owes her and others a big apology for failing them, but I urge her not to make it worse by not voting. She and like-minded young folk should organise and capture the future, because if you don’t, self-serving populist politicians will. Robert Howard Beeston, Nottinghamshire I was in broad agreement with Shaniya Odulawa until I got to this bit: “We are engaged in politics: we protest, we volunteer, but we don’t vote, because we are offered nothing.” We elect governments to govern, not to bribe us to buy our votes. I fully agree that the millennials and Gen Z are being, and have been, hard done by, but it will take a long time to repair the damage done by this 14-year sequence of incompetent and mendacious Tory governments. Voting for Labour candidates is just the first step. Paul Hunt Haywards Heath, West Sussex