Ups and downs of an odd campaign
I WAS sad to hear that a former Tory parliamentary candidate, John Harthman, has endorsed Nick Clegg . We hear Clegg boast that he has to be part of any new coalition. Does he?
Clegg fails to see what his own party thinks about tuition fees. His party has, since its 1996 spring conference , consistently voted for a policy of free university education. Clegg is one of a small group of elite Lib-Dems, backed by Paddy Ashdown, who have never wanted free university education since that conference vote.
In 1999 15 Lib-Dem MSPs at Holyrood abandoned the policy to form a coalition with Labour. In 2010 their MPs at Westminster were bamboozled into abandoning a cap on fees to form the coalition with the Tories.
With Clegg as leader it is now a myth that the Lib-Dems are a democratic party whose members make party policy at their conferences. Voters of Sheffield Hallam, you know what to do. Nigel Boddy, former researcher to two Lib-Dem MSPs in Holyrood AS A recently retired police officer who used to consider the Conservatives the party of law and order I was interested to read p58 of their manifesto. It states that the Conservatives have “increased the proportion of officers working on the front line” and that “crime has been cut by a fifth”.
More than 20 per cent of crime goes unreported and, since Theresa May became Home Secretary, the number of officers has decreased by over 17,500. As a result of cuts elsewhere the police have become the service of first and only resort with a resultant increase in demand.
Worryingly, the manifesto states that the Conservatives will “finish the job of police reform”. It is their current reforms that have decimated the ability of the police to cope.
Clifford Baxter CONGRATULATIONS to Amandeep Singh Bhogal for his brilliant election prank on Ed Miliband [Londoner’s Diary, April 16]. However, it was disturbing that the Labour leader asked him to help gather “the Sikh vote”. Religious politics are a scourge to any nation. None of our political parties should appeal for votes or money on grounds of faith, or give faith groups any special access or influence.
Moreover, it is deeply insulting to members of any faith group (or for that matter, any minority ethnic group) to imagine that their votes are available en bloc to any party.
Richard Heller IF UKIP is slipping in polls [April 16], I believe it’s because of a mistaken strategy of attaching themselves to “Tory chariot wheels”, instead of a neutral position. The election strategists have mistakenly staked everything on a referendum on EU membership, but this is unlikely as 27 other countries have to assent to it.
Ukip needs to adopt a more “subtle” and less “dog whistle” drift to the Right to achieve its ideals.
Robin Lambert
It is deeply insulting to members of any faith group to imagine that their votes are available en bloc
Richard Heller