Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear readers,

So here we are.  After 2 years, 8 months, 12 days and 2,196 blogposts, I’m sorry to say that this is the end for Letters From A Tory.  My website is still funded for another few months so it won’t be disappearing just yet, but this is the last time you’ll hear from me.  Although the closing of this blog has left me on the verge of bursting into tears like a defeated Labour MP who has just taken a look at their CV for the first time in 13 years, I feel that the least I can do is say a few thank yous.

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who has read this blog since it began back in 2007.  I know that many people prefer to read blogs rather than leave comments on them, meaning that I never really had the chance to say hi or show my appreciation.  I chose the ‘letters’ style of blogging because I thought it was a bit different as well as being a good way of debating topical issues, and with a bit of luck that is how it came across.  I’m sure that even the most ardent followers of this blog have disagreed with me on some occasions over the years but that hasn’t stopped you from coming back again and again to read my letters, and that means a lot to me. 

Second, thank you to all those readers who have commented on this blog.  Some of the people who commented in the past have since departed from this site, while others have joined the fray more recently.  Either way, you have provided me with hours and hours of entertainment, arguments and comedy mixed in with some memorable displays of wit, genius and verbal abuse.  This blog simply wouldn’t have been the same without it.  Shaun, Julia, Bill Quango, Talwin, Patently, Tony, Grumpy Old Man, Mark, Antisthenes, Stu, FLS, Measured and so many others have turned this blog into the greatest distraction from my day job that I could ever have wished for.  You’ve also taught me a lot about a whole host of issues, philosophies, ideas and policies, and for that I’m very grateful.

Finally, I’d like to thank all the people who’ve pushed this blog along by linking to it, praising it, slagging it off, nominating it for awards or even just giving it a passing mention.  It’s all part of the fun / madness of the blogosphere, and I’m sad to be leaving that behind.

All that is left for me to say is best wishes to all of you, and fingers crossed that this country will eventually recover from the long and painful journey it is about to embark on.  Who knows what our economy, our society and our politics will look like in years to come.  It’s a shame that I won’t be there to give my views on how it all plays out, but with so many people blogging and tweeting about our wonderfully insane world of politics, I doubt you’ll miss a thing. 

This is Letters From A Tory, signing out.

Dear David Cameron,

This is the final letter that I will ever write, as this blog will sadly be closing down tomorrow (along with a final goodbye from me).  I appreciate that this salient fact may have escaped your attention due to some rather important events in your own life and career over the past few days.  Even so, regardless of the election result, you were always going to be the last person that I wrote to, as there is so much that I’d like to say.

When you became leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, I had barely heard of you.  Along you came, with a superb leadership campaign and a genuine belief that the Conservative Party had to change in order to win an election – which was, of course, entirely correct.  Over the following months and years, we saw the environment take centre-stage, euroscepticism get quietly tucked away and centre-ground political thinking forced onto a somewhat reluctant group of MPs.  It was necessary, but it was a bitter pill to swallow.  Nevertheless, the Conservative MPs on the benches behind you in the House of Commons soon realised that you could deliver a Conservative government, and for that reason alone they kept their mouths shut (most of the time).  However, your inner cabal of strategists, image gurus and modernisers did not have it all their own way.  On several occasions, including the election campaign itself and the election that never was in 2007, your closed circle came under huge pressure from the electorate and your own party.  Yes, they survived, as did you, but only just.  As we approached the recent general election, voters were still unsure about who you were and what you believed in, which is staggering after five years of leading the opposition.  Your desire to keep your cards close to your chest and deal purely in intangibles and soundbytes almost cost you a place in 10 Downing Street.  The public don’t like feeling uneasy about potential Prime Ministers, yet they were fed uneasiness in spades.  Despite all the funding you could have asked for and a crippled government, it so nearly went horribly wrong.

Here we are, just a few days later, witnessing a truly historic coalition between you – a liberal conservative – and the Liberal Democrats.  Ironically enough, everything is completely different yet little has changed.  You still have a group of MPs who will be sitting behind you, watching, waiting, holding their nerve for as long as possible in the hope that you can deliver a truly successful and admired Conservative government.  Common sense tells them to keep quiet rather than voice their anger and irritation.  You will have your inner cabal with you in government as they were in opposition, making decisions that affect everyone and everything despite having shown their incompetence on more than one occasion.  Moreover, the coalition deal has put many of your favoured issues – social justice, a green economy, civil liberties – at the heart of your plans for government.  You didn’t hide your disappointment at not getting a majority in the House of Commons, yet you have gracefully and seamlessly organised a historic coalition with another party.  The question on everyone’s lips now is, naturally, will it last?  I have no idea what the answer is to that question, but then again neither do you.  What I find interesting, though, is not that things could go well or go badly – that is just stating the obvious.  The most incredible element of this coalition is the breathtaking gulf between the best case scenario and worst case scenario for you and the Conservative Party. 

The best case scenario for 2015 is simple enough.  The economy will be growing at a healthy rate and both unemployment and economic inactivity will be reduced.  The welfare state will have been transformed by supporting people into work and punishing those who chose not to get a job.  Our broken society will have begun its long healing process through stronger families, good schools, lower crime and genuine localism taking hold.  Government waste will have been largely eliminated and the state will be much leaner and fitter than it is now.  British people will be put first, civil liberties will be untouchable and immigration will be severely curtailed.  People’s faith in politics and politicians will have been mostly restored.  The Lib Dems will have kept their end of the deal, leaving themselves with absolutely no electoral appeal relative to the Conservative Party and facing annihilation.  The Labour Party will be rife with infighting and weak leadership, making them virtually unelectable given your strong performance as Prime Minister and with the memory of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown fresh in many people’s minds.

The worst scenario, however, is nothing short of disaster.  The coalition falls apart within months as the Lib Dems walk away, accusing you of ignoring them and not delivering on promises.  You look weak and indecisive, with your own party demanding tougher action on any number of issues.  The Conservative grassroots refuse to campaign because you and your inner cabal leave them disillusioned with pointless platitudes and non-traditional policies.  The economy staggers along, still badly wounded, and public sector cuts push unemployment in the wrong direction.  The voters ignore your pleas over the necessity of cutting government spending while every policy announcement is met with scorn and cries of ’spin’.  Your school reforms and localist agenda stumble and fall.  Your welfare reforms leave you branded as abandoning the poor and needy.  Uncontrolled immigration continues unabated and the anger spills over onto the streets.  Your pro-EU stance forces some backbench MPs to break ranks and speak out against the party line.  Labour regroups and, as the only strong opposition party, lap up your failures and convince the floating Lib Dems and disgruntled Conservative voters to join them.  Electoral defeat is little more than an inevitability.

My political crystal ball is of no use.  For the life of me, I just cannot see where this will all end up. Neither the best case scenario nor the worst case scenario are implausible, outlandish or inconceivable, yet the two scenarios are a staggering distance apart.  The only thing that I can say with any certainty is that the future is very uncertain.  The history books will remember the next five years of British politics as one of the most incredible periods in living memory.  I just can’t decide whether that will be for better or for worse.

Good luck, Mr Cameron.  You’re going to need it.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

1. Mark Reckons the media might be relishing the chance to give Lib Dems a hard time.

2. Adam Collyer thinks the Lib Dems have been skewered by the Conservatives.

3. Counting Cats can’t decide between becoming Madonna or the leader of the Labour Party.

4. A Very British Dude wants faster orgasms and First Past The Post.

5. The Great Simpleton laughs at Polly and the rest of the Guardian no-hopers.

“My wife is unimpressed with my 60% vote share. Where she comes from, the successful candidate always got more than 99%”

- Tory MP Greg Hands, whose wife is half-East German and half-Russian

Dear Nick Clegg,

Ok, ok, I know that we don’t have all the details yet of your coalition with David Cameron and the Conservative Party.  Even so, I think it is worth considering what you have been given by the Conservatives and also what might have been if things had been ever so slightly different on election day.  Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the decision to form a coalition government, the apparent mismatch between your bargaining position at the coalition talks and your election performance is quite remarkable.

As I write this letter, I can congratulate you on becoming Deputy Prime Minister as this is one of the very few confirmed posts.  There are also rumours about Vince Cable being given the post of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, which could give him significant scope for taking on the banks, while David Laws and Chris Huhne may be in line for senior Cabinet positions as well.  For the Liberal Democrats, the allure of power seemed too great to ignore.  I am in no doubt that if Labour and the Lib Dems were able to form a majority government together then this would have come to pass rather than a Con-Lib coalition, as the differences in policy, values and attitudes between the Conservatives and Lib Dem could hardly be greater.  That said, the compromises offer some cause for optimism.  Marriage tax breaks and inheritance tax breaks are off the agenda for now while a referendum on AV is effectively guaranteed.  Few Conservatives would oppose your ambition of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000, although during this unsettled economic time I think it is madness to pursue such a policy.  Even so, the Lib Dems have successfully negotiated on a number of key areas and no doubt the senior figures in your party will consider that something of a success.

Despite all this, I am still feeling rather numb this morning.  When a Lib-Lab pact was floated, the rather cruel observation that it would be a ‘Coalition of Losers’ took hold very quickly – and with good reason.  Such a term highlighted one very important fact that I believe some commentators are missing: the Lib Dems are losers.  The 2010 general election was nothing short of a humiliation for the Lib Dems.  At least Labour had low expectations, whereas the Lib Dems were aiming for 100+ seats.  Never before in British politics have I seen a party or individual so comprehensively defeated yet end up with more stature and power than they had before.  If the Conservatives had gained just a handful more seats, your position as leader of the Lib Dems would be seriously under threat and your party would be consigned to a thoroughly deserved period of irrelevance yet again.  In my view, the only reason that the Lib Dems even had a voice at the negotiating table was because David Cameron wanted this to work, not because you or your party had done anything to merit a strong negotiating position.  For a party to end up with one-sixth of the number of MPs as the Conservatives but still be awarded several senior Cabinet roles is incredible.

It seems as though David Cameron’s desire to form a coalition government was the decisive factor in these negotiations.  On the basis of your election performance, you deserved no sympathy and no Cabinet positions.  However, Cameron obviously felt that he was better going forward with someone else on board, even if it came at considerable cost to his own MPs and his support among the grassroots.  This almost unprecendeted coalition has put both you and our new Prime Minister in a perilous position before the new government has even had its first Cabinet meeting.  Whether or not this backroom deal can stand the test of time, or even a few years, remains to be seen.  Even so, when you and your colleagues feel like rebelling or breaking the line or tearing up the coalition deal - which will surely happen before too long – just remember the fate that could have awaited you as you woke up on Friday 7th May 2010.  Your career could have been over by now, were it not for the Conservatives being off their game in the run-up to the election.  Quite simply, you are the luckiest man in British politics.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

1. The Appalling Strangeness says Labour are undemocratic and completely reprehensible.

2. Leg Iron lays down a challenge to Labour and the Green Party.

3. Daily Maybe discusses the three elections that never happened.

4. Dick Puddlecote declares that the Lib Dems are a bunch of fence-sitters.

5. Heresy Corner looks back on the strange death of the Lib-Lab coalition.

“You know that things are changing when you hear Tory MPs in the Members’ tea room talking about whether they could win their seats under AV voting system!”

- a tweet from Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland

Dear Gordon Brown,

Well, well, well.  You’ve certainly livened things up a bit, haven’t you.  In one of the most cynical moves of this entire post-election period, you have thrown yourself on your sword (at least, that’s what you want us to think) in an attempt to outflank the Conservatives.  While this will definitely have put the cat among the Conservative pidgeons, it is one of the last acts in a truly astonishing political career that has seen you follow your predecessor in falling from grace in the most humiliating and public fashion.

If your political career had ended in 2007 rather than 2010, the history books would have told an amazing story.  A Labour Chancellor who ushered in the longest period of economic growth ever recorded, a Labour Chancellor who abolished boom and bust, stable interest rates, stable growth – it was all so astounding, and it was all a lie.  Your economic reputation has been comprehensively shattered by the recent recession.  Having said that, I do not mean that the recession itself destroyed your mythical status, rather that the recession has uncovered the timebombs that your incompetence planted so many years ago.  You are responsible for the faulty regulation system that allowed the banking crisis to develop over many years, you are responsible for not calling time on consumer debt, you are responsible for ruining the solid economy that you inherited in 1997 and you are responsible for such an appallingly cavalier attitude to public spending that has now left this country facing the sharpest government cutbacks in history.  These timebombs have been ticking ever so quietly in the background since 1997, but they were never going to stay hidden forever.  Just look where we are now.  We’ve just had the worst recession since WWII, government and consumer debt is spiralling out of control, the public sector is running out of control, unemployment is higher than in 1997 and we have 8 million adults not in work.

The history books will also rightly remember the scandals that struck your premiership as well, and they haven’t been in short supply.  The Labour Party donation scandals, ID cards and numerous other attacks on civil liberties, losing 28 million child benefit records, the 10p tax rate debacle, Expensesgate, failing to equip our armed forces properly, several attempts to dethrone you from within your own party (which you only just survived) and – perhaps most memorably – the election that never was.  If you hadn’t dithered at that crucial moment in September 2007, the 2010 election would never have happened and you would still be Prime Minister for at least two more years.  Dithering has become a Brown trademark over the past three years, as all the big decisions have left you floundering around for someone or something to blame other than yourself.  It has been a truly undignified period in your political career.  How fitting that your resignation speech, or should I say the chaos that you hoped the speech would bring, was just as undignified.  That said, I’m sure Mandelson and Campbell have been pulling all the strings since the election result on Friday, and this underhand tactic has their grubby hands all over it.

There is, of course, a wonderful irony to the end of your time as PM.  You plan to remain PM for another three months while a Lib Dem coalition is formed and a leadership contest plays out, which is just farcical.  You also expect the British people to accept another unelected PM following talks with the Lib Dems, which is similarly farcical.  Personally, I think it would have made much more sense for you to remain PM for a little while longer but tell the Lib Dems that you would not fight another election in charge, so that at least they knew who they might be going into a coalition with.  Instead, we get dithering, confusion, poor leadership, cynical positioning and a lamentable state of affairs that will surely leave the public unimpressed.  Just like the good old times, eh Gordon?

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

1. Sharpe’s Opinion is celebrating Gordon Brown’s demise.

2. A Very British Dude thinks PR is just a sideshow for the mess Labour have created.

3. The Blue Idea reminds us that PR is not the only problem with our political system.

4. Next Left is worried that a Labour leadership contest could make things even worse for them.

5. Capitalists at Work warns against misreading Nick Clegg’s latest moves.

“If Gordon Brown’s fate has been to resemble not just one but several Shakespearean tragic heroes – cursed in his relationship with Tony Blair by a jealousy worthy of Othello, racked in the first months of his premiership by the indecision of Hamlet – then today he was Macbeth, seemingly playing out his final act. Like the embattled Scottish king holed up in his castle, watching Birnam Wood march on Dunsinane, Brown sat in No 10 knowing that, a few yards away, enemy forces were gathered, preparing to combine and seize his crown.”

- Jonathan Freedland in today’s Guardian (full article HERE)

Dear readers,

Bloody hell, I go away for a weekend and what do I find when I get back? David Cameron trying to sell the family silver (and several of his colleagues’ careers) in front of the entire world’s media, Nick Clegg assuming a position of relevance that his shocking election performance does not even begin to justify and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom being relegated to a mere spectator.  Strategically, I have no idea what Cameron is doing.  By immediately opening talks with the Lib Dems, he put himself and the Conservative Party in an incredibly weak position as Clegg could walk away at any moment if he doesn’t get what he wants and speak to Labour instead.  If Cameron had made the Lib Dems speak to Brown first, he would have exhausted all their bargaining power by the time they finally came grovelling to him.  In my humble opinion, Clegg can never and will never strike a deal with Labour, which means that even if the talks between the Conservatives and Lib Dems break down at some point, we could be witnessing the beginning of the end for Gordon Brown.  Sadly, today also marks the beginning of the end for Letters From A Tory, because on Friday this blog will be closing down forever.

For pushing on three years, I’ve been dragging my lazy butt out of bed almost every morning to write a letter to some unfortunate soul in the world of politics.  While this has proved immensely entertaining and challenging, the truth is that I can’t keep it going anymore.  Although I don’t work in Westminster or for a political party, my job is sufficiently close to politics to require even more of my attention in the coming weeks, months and years, meaning that I no longer have time for my beloved letters.  As I’m sure a lot of you know, the blogosphere is becoming an increasingly crowded space and trying to keep my head above water is becoming more and more difficult.  That’s not to say I blog purely to gain millions of readers or that this blog doesn’t have its own little merry following.  I am, needless to say, eternally grateful for the visitors. support and award nominations that I’ve received since this blog started and I always enjoy political debates enormously.  Even so, I simply can’t take this blog any further than I already have, so I figured it was best to leave on a high.  Also, it’s probably a good idea to quit blogging while my girlfriend is still speaking to me, which is remarkable given the amount of time that I’ve had to ignore her while writing my letters and doing ‘First Class posts’ every evening.

I have just about enough energy to keep blogging for a few more days but on Friday the curtain will fall over my blue letterbox for the last time.  Before then, I fully intend to watch every second of the extremely painful birth of the next phase of British politics with a mixture of fear, bewilderment, excitement and hope.  Mostly fear, though.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Like I said yesterday and have said countless times before on this blog, Brown isn’t going anywhere until he has no choice but to walk away.  It looks like a Lib-Lab coalition, however unlikely, is still possible, while Cameron will be desperate to get the DUP (well, what’s left of it) onside.  Expect the media to turn on Brown but expect the unexpected from Clegg.  The Lib Dems had a disastrous night and their ability to call the shots has been significantly weakened after they finished a long way back in third and even lost MPs since 2005.  Clegg knows he has no mandate, he knows he has no legitimacy, but that will make Brown’s carrots (i.e. bribes) look even more tempting given his  own party’s spectacular failure.

As luck would have it, I’m away this weekend but by the time I get back on Sunday evening, things could look very very different from how they look as the world wakes up on Friday morning…

1. Grumpy Optimist wonders if previously undecided voters will help Labour today.

2. Adam Collyer says this is a defining moment in our political lives.

3. Longrider discovers that Guardian columnists have become seriously desperate.

4. Obselete tries to figure out who the least worst party is at this election.

5. Subrosa and several other bloggers are joining forces for a live blog tonight from 10pm.

“Like Rasputin, Gordon Brown’s government has refused to die.”

- Boris Johnson on the campaign trail

Dear readers,

Today is the day that something rather special could happen in British politics.  We might have to wait until tomorrow before we know how many MPs each party got, but in reality we already know who the winners of the election are.  Over the course of the campaign, a number of individuals have distinguished themselves and imprinted their name or face on the nation – possibly forever.  In no particular order, here is my list of winners from the 2010 general election:

NICK CLEGG – so his policies are rubbish, he flip flops all the time and everyone who knows anything about politics knows how useless he has been as leader of the Lib Dems since 2007 bar one good TV debate.  Even so, he’s dragged the Lib Dems from around 18-20% in the polls (sometimes even less!) up to the mid-20s and possibly beyond, and for that alone he deserves a tip of the hat.

MANISH SOOD – he’ll never win his battle with a long-serving Conservative MP at the polling station today, but he has made a lot of friends.  What a legend and what a winner (in my eyes, if not the polls).

GEORGE OSBORNE – let’s be honest, all the Chancellors have been a bit crap.  The leaders’ TV debates wiped away any interest in what they had to say, but Osborne was identified many months ago as the weakest link in the Conservative campaign, yet his credibility has survived intact and his performance in the Chancellors TV debate on Channel 4 was commendable if unspectacular.  Labour went for him, but in that little personal battle he was undoubtedly the winner.

THE INSTITUTE FOR FISCAL STUDIES - they got several mentions in the leaders’ TV debates, they have been all over the news throughout the entire campaign and they have established themselves beyond any doubt as the most important think-tank in the country.  Congratulations to them, a phenomenal achievement.

DAVID MILIBAND – no doubt on Mandy’s advice, he has been notable by his absence as he lays in wait for a leadership contest.  While the likes of Harman and Balls have publicly associated themselves with Brown, Milipede has wisely kept his distance, thereby increasing his chances of winning a Labour leadership election in the near future.  Definitely a big winner from this election.

GILLIAN DUFFY – she might not be that important and her ‘bigoted’ views might not have shifted a single poll but, let’s face it, she’s a lot richer than she was a week ago so she’s definitely a winner from this election.

BENEDICT BROGAN – ok so he was a high-profile journalist before this election, but his constant sucking up to the Conservatives will surely not have gone unnoticed.  He’s definitely won the hearts of CCHQ and possibly their minds too.

THE BBC – you know what, I never thought I’d hear myself say this but the BBC have done bloody well to rise above the fray.  Admittedly, it was rather alarming that they felt the need to tell everyone a few weeks back that they’d be impartial during the election campaign, as if this was unexpected and we should be eternally grateful to them.  That said, I have barely seen a single substantial claim of bias and I think they’ve done an excellent job and have won me over (at least temporarily).  If only they could maintain these standards outside of an election period…

DAVID CAMERON – no, really, he’s a huge winner.  I don’t think he will get an overall majority tomorrow, but this needs to be put into perspective.  Only once since 1945 has this country swung from a working majority to a new working majority for another party in just one election.  If he even gets close, it would be a phenomenal achievement against an existing Labour majority of 48.  In all honesty, I think with different policies and a different approach to this election he could have done better, but let us not forget what a shambles of an unelectable unappealing party he inherited in 2005 and how far the party has come towards being genuinely electable as a government.

Anyone else who should be on the list, or anyone who should never have been on it?! 

Over to you…

1. Witterings from Witney goes back to time to try and restore some of his faith in democracy.

2. Constantly Furious is considering taking a serious risk when voting at this election.

3. Dick Puddlecote says it’s not a good idea to vote Labour, especially if you like…errr… tits.

4. Going Fast Getting Nowhere is already saying his election prayers at bedtime tonight.

5. Newgate News would be very grateful if Gordon Brown could get out of his sitting room.

“The parties have been allowed to stay in a universe parallel to the real economy, and to real international markets, because the electorate seems quite happy for them to talk about “values”, “the big society” and “fairness” as a sort of simulacrum of a policy debate. But then reality will come soon enough, starting some time on Friday. …The months ahead, whatever the result of tomorrow’s poll, are likely to be the most arduous and salutary in our country’s history since the war. I suspect some of the likely victors are preparing for that. However, because of their diversion into the comfort-zone of ‘agreeing with Nick’, I doubt many voters are remotely ready for what is to come.”

- Simon Heffer in today’s Telegraph (full article HERE)

Dear Nick Clegg,

I don’t know whether last night’s YouGov poll is enough of a reason to panic, with your party’s rating in their daily poll down 4 points at 24% while ComRes had you at 26%.  Even so, I think that with the election so close, it is worth reminding everyone of how totally unfit you are for any position of power in this country, such is your spineless approach to policymaking…

FLIP FLOP 1: First, let’s jump back to 2007 and the Lib Dem leadership contest.  During the campaign, you said that getting rid of Trident would destroy the UK’s bargaining power in non-proliferation talks being held in 2010.  Now, in the 2010 general election, you are now saying that Trident has to go.  Consistency it ain’t.

FLIP FLOP 2: In June 2008 you were quoted as saying that ”I’m not interested in my party becoming an annex to a Labour or Conservative government.”  Yer, sure.  Your open flirting with the Labour Party, even to the point of suggesting that they have to ditch Brown to get you onside, has been so brazen that I felt dirty just reading about it.

FLIP FLOP 3: In the Lib Dem 2005 manifesto, it promised us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.  When it came to decision day, your party bottled it and ran away like little children under your (supposed) leadership.

FLIP FLOP 4: According to the Financial Times in January 2009 - ”Britain must prepare to ditch the pound and join the euro in order to salvage the public finances and prevent the “permanent decline” of the City, Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, said on Tuesday. Predicting that debate over the euro could soon return with a vengeance, Mr Clegg argued that joining a “major reserve currency” would protect Britain from its “extremely dangerous” exposure to volatile global capital flows. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said public opinion could “turn on its head” and swing against the pound as the “sheer brutality” of the crisis prompted the public to yearn for the stability offered by the eurozone.”  Well, that prediction worked out well, didn’t it.  Glad that you were so honest about your position on the euro during the TV debates.  Not.

FLIP FLOP 5: You and your buddy Vince Cable slated the Conservative plans to prevent the rise in National Insurance, and even described the business leaders who supported the plans as “nauseating”.  You and Vince went on to label the Conservative policy as “schoolboy economics” and “voodoo economics” and ”a con” – only to support the policy in your 2010 election manifesto, branding the National Insurance rise as ”a damaging tax on jobs and an unfair tax on employees”. 

FLIP FLOP 6: Yesterday you made a speech in the Lib-Lab marginal seat of Liverpool Wavertree.  You insisted that electoral reform, long a priority for Lib Dem supporters, would not now be a precondition of any pact you entered into after the election, despite previously saying that such reform was an “absolute precondition for renewal in this country”.

I have no doubt that with a bit of crowdsourcing, this list could easily be extended a lot lot lot further.  Maybe the Lib Dems have run out of gas at the last moment, maybe they haven’t.  All I know is that you are far more duplicitous and disingenuous than Gordon Brown.  The PM is a fool and has made goodness knows how many mistakes, but at least he believes he is doing the right thing – whereas you don’t believe in anything at all.  I leave you with the news that the ComRes poll from last night found more than a third of people admit they may change their mind about how they will vote tomorrow, with Liberal Democrat voters being more likely to switch.  One can only hope that the undecided voters come to their senses and stay away from the flip-flopping Lib Dems and switch to the Conservatives so that this country is run by a party that actually sticks to its policies once in a while.

Yours disrespectfully,

A.Tory

1. Daniel1979 lays bare the gaping divide between political promises and reality.

2. Ambush Predator is delighted that immigration has been such a success in this country.

3. Opinionated and Vocal declares that the Labour government is anything but great.

4. Quiet Man does not appreciate being labelled a racist.

5. A View From Middle England thinks Labour are just political bullies.

“I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst Prime Minister we have had in this country. It is a disgrace and he owes an apology to the people and the Queen.”

- David Cameron on the campaign trail Manish Sood, the Labour candidate for the Norfolk North West seat, in an interview with a local Norfolk newspaper.  Sky News offered him the chance today to withdraw his comments or apologise, but he declined.