One of the more interesting episodes of the otherwise rather dull election campaign in Reading was the tale told by the Reading Post (getreading.co.uk, 27 April) of a woman called Lynn Maier from Woodley, an eastern suburb, who thought it “immoral” that a party, in this case Labour, had sent a freepost leaflet to her “child”.

The “child” in question was 17 and therefore on the electoral register.

17 year-olds are, of course, included in the electoral roll because, once 18, they will be able to vote. Generally speaking “children” of 17 are allowed to do other things without the consent of their parents: drive cars and have sex spring to mind. They are also, to one degree or other, allowed to join the army, pay taxes, get married and – wait for it – JOIN political parties. All of these things involve a certain independence of mind and raise a few more “moral” questions than whether or not one might read a political opinion.

It must be great fun being Mr Maier’s 17 year-old son. Presumably one is packed off to bed before and of the dangerously “immoral” post watershed television is on the screen. I imagine the boy is not allowed to pick up a newspaper – certainly not one of those with the red tops and bear breasted ladies. I can only speculate that this boy, once placed snugly in his cotton wool-lined suit must walk through the fleshpots of central Reading with his mother, or some other suitably straight laced chaperone trotting along twenty paces behind him. I can only assume that such “morally” questionable items as popular music and video games are appropriately vetted before little Master Maier is in danger of sullying the purity of his 17 year-old male brain (the organ most precious to lads of that age). Oh to have enjoyed such “moral” protection.

Is it possible to imagine a more embarrassing act from a mother? Is it really the case that a 17 year-old was prepared to let his mother describe him as a “child” in a local paper likely to be seen by all his mates and sit along side her in this conspiracy. Most, in fact virtually all, the 17 year-olds I’ve ever met would object with screaming indignation at even the suggestion of having their mother make a complete show of them. Will she really be standing outside the After Dark to collect his and tuck him up in bed in just under 12 months?

I imagine that this story created a great rush of young men looking to get a hold of one of Labour’s Freepost leaflets. Somehow the party apparatchiks must have pulled a fast one on the Royal Mail and somehow persuaded them to deliver an item of top-shelf raciness. I thought I had better check. But no, there’s Labour’s candidate pictured in various situations around the constituency but none of the compromising and not a nipple in sight and certainly no catholic priests. Only mildly disappointed by this I read the text – all very tame stuff. Lots of talk about how to secure the recovery but nothing about how to secure a gimp mask, no proposals to provide grants to home owners to fit install bondage swings and as for some recreational, far from handing out the numbers of your local dealer, there’s some waffle about being tough on drugs and crime.

Becoming desperate to get to the bottom of this (as it were) I decide that it must be the campaign number – so I phone the hotline expecting to find myself chatting to some semi naked babe (or at least to a pensioner pretending to be semi-naked while clicking away on her knitting needles) but no – all they wanted to know was whether I was interested in taking a garden stake.

Dejected, I took to reading the election material of all the other candidates that had come through my door and you know what? I couldn’t find anything in any of them remotely likely to endanger morality – even the formerly unwashed Green candidate was wearing a suit and tie!

But then I made the kind of mistake that every parent fears. I placed a child in moral danger by leaving the selection of edgy literature on the dining room table. To my horror next morning there was an innocent 11 year old tucking into her toasted muffin while reading the very same leaflet that had struck horrified in Woodley. Must approach this delicately, I thought. I asked her carefully if she needed to talk about anything she had seen. One thing, she said, pointing a collection of characters holing up some sign or other, “His jacket doesn’t match his trousers, and look at that jumper – who would vote for that?”.