SO Julia Tickridge, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Weaver Vale, tells us that she felt “dismay and disbelief” upon learning that the current MP for Weaver Vale didn’t vote on the Equal Pay bill before Parliament recently, Guardian, December 31.

Surely barely concealed delight was a more likely response to this opportunity for her to express outrage in the run-up to the General Election while simultaneously promoting one of her party’s policies. Despite our MP’s absence, the bill was comfortably passed by 258 votes to eight which means 384 other MPs also didn’t vote.

This was, however, only the first reading of the bill, it still has two more readings in the Commons and three in the Lords, plus several committee stages to go through before it can become law, so it is entirely normal for there to be a low turnout at this stage.

Perhaps a more genuine cause for dismay and disbelief to Julia Tickridge ought to be that among the many MPs who didn’t vote on this bill “championed by the Labour Party” was the MP for Doncaster North, one Mr Ed Miliband, and leader of her own party.

Does she think that he has also “let down not just women but all his constituents by not fulfilling his fundamental duty as an MP to take his voice to Parliament”?

Paul Cotton (of no political party) Northwich