Elections that left Lib Dems a lame duck

From: William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.

THE place for careers advice is the school (Nick Clegg, The Yorkshire Post, May 27). Teachers know their pupils’ aptitudes and are best placed to judge their potentials. What is not required is another level of enthusiastic extracurricular “expertise”. Our youth require not more advice, but jobs, or at least the certainty of employment after training.

Once again, Nick Clegg’s trumpet gives an uncertain, not to say untutored, sound. One would need to be a born Liberal to regard this as a demonstration of fitness for leadership.

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One cannot but compare his performance with that of David Steele who, in similarly difficult circumstances, managed to exit with his reputation, and that of his party, intact.

To those who, though not Liberal supporters, placed a high value on the independent and moderating influence of the party, this present abject failure is exasperating. It is not so much that of a lame duck, as that of a lame duckling limping hopefully after Old Mother Goose. Small wonder then that uncommitted voters see Ukip as the sole challenge to the major parties.

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

THE results of the EU election have clearly shown the public’s contempt towards those endless empty promises concerning the UK’s continuing membership of the undemocratic United States of Europe project.

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Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems must surely realise that they are a spent force and should join the Labour Party or the Greens where their true allegiances lie, while David Cameron should start to act like a true centre-right politician and grant the UK citizens an immediate referendum on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

However, another important issue is the pathetic turnout to the recent election, no doubt influenced by the public’s lack of respect for politicians who appear to be living in cloud cuckoo land.

From: Coun Colin Challen, Labour member for Castle Ward, Scarborough.

DESPITE The Yorkshire Post’s political leanings, it does your reportage no good to describe Labour’s election results from last week as a “drubbing”’ With 338 council seats in the bag, seven new MEPs, and with our Euro result 10 points ahead of where we were in 2009, Labour has posted a success. There’s no doubt Ukip did well, but their council elections poll share actually went down compared to 2013, and a more detailed analysis reveals significant weaknesses in their position.

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How was it, for example, here in Scarborough that they topped the Euro poll, but failed quite badly in a local by-election on the same day to hold on to one of their two seats on Scarborough Borough Council? Might it be that not so many people trust them to actually run things?

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

IN light of Ukip’s success in the recent elections, instead of hiring expensive PR gurus from the US and Australia, wouldn’t the major parties be better having advice from pensioners, young mums and the unemployed as to how they can connect with the issues that really worry the electorate?

From: Barrie Frost, Watson’s Lane, Reighton, Filey.

THE leaders of the three main political parties have, following Ukip’s successes in the recent council and European elections, uttered the same repetitive comments that “we have to work harder, listen to the people and tack the appropriate actions”.

But, they never do, do they? They ignore the electorate, pay only lip-service to democracy and carry on with the same old failed and flawed policies and ideas. Do they agree with Boris Johnson (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, May 27) that we are all “peasants”?

From: Phil Hutchinson, Abbey Lane, Sheffield.

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THE reason I cannot ever join in with the Ukip popular movement is that it reminds me too much of how the Nazis came to power in Germany.

The Labour Party would do well to come into line with the other establishment parties, including the Greens, and commit to a referendum on EU membership.

That’s if they want to preserve the present established political order.

From: Dr Alastair Cook, Austwick, North Yorkshire.

IN their consideration of the interesting results of the recent elections and of the implications for the General Election in May 2015, it seems to me that both Tom Richmond (The Yorkshire Post, May 27) and Sir Bernard Ingham (May 28) have missed what might be a fascinating possibility.

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In the event that Scotland decides to leave the UK, a decision that will be made eight months before the General Election, surely they will not then be electing representatives to a foreign Parliament? The West Lothian Question is coming to get you!

From: Rod Allen, Brighouse.

WITH regret, I find out that one of the few gains the Conservatives made in the local elections was at the expense of a hard working and community-based person in Colin Stout. I have supported and occasionally worked alongside Colin for about 35 years. He truly has/had the people of Brighouse at the forefront of his work on the Calderdale Council.