SIR – It is incredible that the decision to coerce parents into injecting their children can be right in a free society.

MMR vaccinations are a preventative measure, in the opinion of some, and the consent of parents should be paramount, as indeed it should be to any non-life threatening medical treatment.

As I am free now from the constraints of party politics, I will speak out strongly and loudly against the dreadful encroachments by the state worthy of pre-war Germany or post-war Soviet Union.

Godfrey Bloom, MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire