April 22: Election letters and how Britain came back from the brink of bankruptcy

MANY of your correspondents pick on the Conservatives not fulfilling their manifesto. They all forget we have had a coalition Government.

Perhaps it would help them understand if they picture a meeting of their family deciding what is best to do for them all in life and finances and once agreed, having to go next door and negotiate with the neighbours how much they can actually do.

Well that has been the situation for David Cameron and his team every day. The people who made an agreement that if there was a AV vote they would back the much-needed boundary changes, which at present give Labour a built-in majority but when they failed to win the vote they welshed on the deal.

So once Mr Cameron and Cabinet had agreed an action or course to take for the country’s economy, they then had to go an get agreement from the Lib Dems.

In spite of trying to govern with one hand tied behind his back, Mr Cameron has done a great job pulling the county from the brink of bankruptcy. History shows over the last 100 years Labour has destroyed the economy and the Conservatives turned it round. If we have a strong economy, everything else will follow. The two Eds seem to have forgotten how close to a Greek situation they were responsible for taking us.

We need to build on our economic strength and jobs, funding for the NHS and schools etc will follow.

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

I HAVE listened intently to all the election promises from all the parties and the interviews with the general public and read the excellent letters and articles in The Yorkshire Post.

What I can’t understand is why there is any doubt that the Conservatives shouldn’t be allowed to finish getting the country back on its feet after a disastrous 13 years of Labour in power. Let them finish the job they have started so well. No promises can be fulfilled unless there is the money to fund them.

From: DW Nash, Leeds.

THE fatuities multiply in David Cameron’s obsession with publicity. Your column on Geoff Boycott’s offer to teach young Elwen Cameron to play cricket is clearly rehearsed (The Yorkshire Post, April 17). Elwen would hardly require Boycott to help him if he has scarcely held a bat or ball.

The silliness is partly in the context of who is the greatest living Yorkshireman. It is arguable whether Boycott is as good a cricketer as Ray Illingworth or Brian Close, let alone sportsmen in other fields. It is not just a matter of judgements of value within cricket or sport but also between different areas of achievement.

Some people would rate the arts higher than cricket for example. Again would you compare the middling William Hague with the inspiring Dame Fanny Waterman? Even within politics Hague would struggle against Denis Healey.

All this knockabout takes place, of course, within God’s Own County. Whether David Cameron would have a clue what is meant by this expression is a another matter. But please spare us claims of divine presence in Cameron’s Yorkshire political campaign.

From: Phil Hanson, Baildon.

HEADLINE figures for the unemployed are being misinterpreted by many analysts and the Labour Party in particular. The number of new jobs is a great success and the figure of 5.6 per cent unemployed understates the achievement of the coalition because it disregards the fact that we have seen many hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming here to work during the recession.

This increased labour supply is the simple reason why wages have largely been static, why would pay rates increase, other than through productivity? It really is that simple. Alas, our analysts, especially the BBC who are acting as the marketing department of the Labour Party seem unable or

unwilling to acknowledge this.

From: B Murray, Sheffield.

I THINK that it is scandalous that the Tories are considering extending the “Right to Buy” scheme – which caused the severe shortage of affordable housing in the first place.

From: A W Clarke, Wold Croft, Sutton on Derwent.

IT is good to hear that, in spite of being told for years about the problem, the Labour Party has at last decided to try to do something, if they are elected, about immigrant workers being paid less than local workers.

Perhaps they now begin to understand why so many people, long derided as racist, had good reason to feel bitter about the last Labour government’s “relaxed” attitude to mass immigration.

Aside from the gross unfairness of paying workers below the minimum wage, if immigrant workers are here without dependents, they can live on very much less than those with families and mortgages.

Unscrupulous employers were very quick to recognise this.

It is amazing how an election will suddenly bring these matters to the fore.