Conservative party leadership candidates are out of touch with the rest of society

Bob Taylor asks whether the appointment of a new Prime Minister by 160,000 Tory party members is a travesty of democracy (Letters, 18 June).

The tiny, mostly elderly and mostly South of Englandbased members of the party – just 0.2 per cent of the population – will next month impose their choice of Prime Minister on the country.

As befits a party which is utterly unrepresentative of modern Britain, and many of whose members believe we should never have given away the Empire, the candidates aiming to secure the votes of these people are also utterly unrepresentative.

Most of them are privately educated, and just one of the final six went to a comprehensive – like most people in Britain today – while there are twice as many candidates who went to one single school, the most socially exclusive public school in the country, Eton College.

The Tory candidates are competing among themselves to offer tax cuts rather than rescuing the NHS from the mess they sank it into over the last nine years.

Their proposals include abolishing the highest rate of tax and cutting the tax paid by corporations.

These tax cuts for the rich and for corporations would inevitably be paid for by cutting public services, and it’s not a coincidence that the biggest cuts are proposed by the candidate who belongs to a lobby group for abolishing the NHS.

Meanwhile, the candidates are also pandering to the prejudices of party members by proposing a no-deal departure from the EU, having spent the first half of this year wrecking Theresa May’s attempt to leave with a negotiated deal.

But most Conservative party members are retired and rich and will not be affected by the job losses and business collapses which would result from no-deal.

PHIL TATE Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh

In response to Bob Taylor’s letter (‘The Tory Party leadership contest is more democratic than you might imagine’, 18 June) – just because things are being done to ‘customary processes’ does not make it right.

This flawed process will place a person in power with their finger on the button without the consent of the country.

To me that is a democratic disaster.

JOHN CUTLAND Montgomery Street , Kirkcaldy