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 Ed Balls,
I’m way past being surprised when a Labour cabinet member says that tactical voting is the best way to keep the Conservatives out of office.  You haven’t got a hope in hell of winning the largest number of seats at the general election so your only hope is that the Lib Dems have [...]

 
From the Telegraph:
Labour’s general election campaign is in crisis amid damaging rows between senior cabinet ministers and a new poll showing support for the party dropping to a six-month low.  In one particularly bad-tempered incident, Lord Mandelson ordered Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, to “shut up” and told her he did not want to [...]

Dear Vince Cable,
Seeing as no-one cares what you have to say anymore thanks to Cleggmania, I thought it would be generous of me to bring you back into the fold.  However, the reason I am writing to you today is to explain why your grossly irresponsible manifesto will cause more damage to the UK economy [...]

First came… OPINIUM: Conservatives 38% (+1), Labour 28% (-2), Lib Dems 16% (+1)
Then came… YOUGOV: Conservatives 39% (+2), Labour 32% (-), Lib Dems 18% (-1)
And finally came… COMRES: Conservatives 37% (-), Labour 30% (-2), Lib Dems 19% (+1)
All three polls were taken after last week’s Budget, suggesting that Darling’s favourable press coverage at the time [...]

Dear Nick Clegg,
No doubt you had in mind a dramatic, media-busting launch of your tax plans yesterday that would herald a resurgence in the polls.  Sadly, what you have ended up with is your party running extremely hard just to stand still.  It is clear that you have been forced to drastically alter your most infamous policy [...]

“Today’s Liberal Democrats are an Ikea party, cobbled together overnight on the bedroom floor and rarely upright in one place for more than a week. Vince Cable wants the banks bailed out by the government, but only sort of. Paddy Ashdown wants Afghanistan saved from the Taliban “if it can be done properly”. The party [...]

Dear Vince Cable,
Clearly there was something in the water this weekend, as everyone seemed to be enjoying a spot of ’bonus bashing’.  On Saturday, George Osborne said that a Conservative government would seek to stop the payment of large bonuses across the banking system and told the Guardian that handing out big awards backed by state guarantees was [...]

“The impact of the scheme is accelerating.”
- Ian Austin MP, the government’s housing minister, trying to put a nice gloss on the news that just six families in England have been helped by the government’s £200m mortgage rescue scheme – up from two families in the previous month.  The initiative, launched at the start of [...]

“Gordon Brown seemed to offer a lot of warm words but very few hard plans to fight the recession which has engulfed the world economy and his government. Rather than trying to shore up his reputation in America, he should be focusing his attention on fixing the mess we face back home.”
- Vince Cable on [...]

“The government said they would attach strict conditions on bonuses and it is very clear they are doing nothing of the kind. The banks are just making complete monkeys of them.”
- Vince Cable, Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, reacts to the news that RBS has set aside hundreds of millions of pounds for staff bonuses, despite [...]

Dear Vince Cable,
It seems that we share a common perspective on the latest Conservative proposal for changing taxes.  Fuel duty is certainly a sensitive issue at the moment and the announcement was timed to hurt Labour badly.  Unfortunately I’m a little cautious about singing the praises of this proposal as it seems a little isolated.
The mechanism [...]

Dear Vince Cable,
You do make me chuckle.  First came the Bean-Stalin line in the Commons, and now we have the most ridiculously half-baked policy I have heard in ages which aims to save this country from the obesity epidemic through the mighty power of fruit juices.
Obviously, you need to be reminded of a few issues related [...]

“I dreamt it up while I was having a bath. My wife tried to talk me out of using it, but I thought I’d give it a go”
- Liberal Democrat acting leader Vince Cable on his Mr Bean taunt to the Prime Minister