Voters are tired of the Tories – but have little enthusiasm for the alternative

SIR – Despite Sir Keir Starmer’s dizzy rhetoric about seismic swings and new horizons for Labour (telegraph.co.uk, May 3), the turnout in the Blackpool South by-election was only 32 per cent.

This was a triumph for voter apathy, not for democracy, and has clearly demonstrated the slough into which British politics has descended. Brian Pegnall Falmouth, Cornwall

SIR – Did anyone on the planet think that the Tories stood a chance of holding on to Blackpool South? Not to my knowledge. We are taking a hammering and must now work hard before the general election. Herbert Chappell Woking, Surrey

SIR – The local elections have been an unmitigated disaster for the Conservative Party. The re-election of Ben Houchen as Tees Valley mayor should not be allowed to mask that.

The continued rise of Reform UK reflects the Tories’ lurch to the Left, away from the values held by most party members and Red Wall voters. In recent days the Prime Minister has announced several policies that appear to be more Right-wing, but the reality is that Conservative voters no longer trust their MPs to deliver such policies.

One Nation MPs – many of whom would be more at home in the Liberal Democrats – have blocked policies that would have persuaded us that the Government is on our side, and Conservative Party headquarters seems intent on selecting more of the same candidates.

We can only hope that the general election, which will almost certainly be equally disastrous, brings about a reset and a return to a truly Conservative agenda. Norman Inniss London SE9

SIR – As a lifelong Labour voter, I suggest that the local election results are not an endorsement of the Labour Party or its leader – because neither has proposed policies in any meaningful detail – but a criticism of this Government’s incompetence and self-indulgent fractiousness.

Labour won’t win the next general election: the Conservatives will lose it. Most people’s principal concerns – such as the cost of housing, the collapsing NHS and the failure of

Brexit – are seen as direct consequences of Conservative policies that this Government has no interest in correcting. The fact that the Labour Party has no credible answers to these basic problems is by the by.

Michael Heaton

Warminster, Wiltshire

SIR – It is worth remembering what the actual Labour Party (as opposed to New Labour) was like when it was last in power during the 1970s.

I was then a young teenager, and endured the Winter of Discontent along with the rest of the country, which was really run by the unions. Mary Moore London E2

SIR – You report on Labour’s loss of control in Oldham (“‘Vote for Palestine’ campaign blamed as Labour suffers shock defeat in Oldham”, telegraph. co.uk, May 3).

What has the war in Gaza got to do with the governance of this council? That a religious group should be able to influence elections and, potentially, foreign policy is very worrying for British democracy. Stan Labovitch Windsor, Berkshire

SIR – In recent days you have run letters criticising Left-wing audience members for rowdy behaviour during

Question Time and similar programmes.

As a 69-year-old former Conservative voter, I join in with them from the comfort of my own home. The reason? Laughable answers from Conservative politicians attempting to defend the indefensible. Gareth Jones Oxford