Never mind the past, Clegg has created his own catastrophe

Nick Clegg may not have “made Ramsay MacDonald’s mistakes” quoting from Michael Meadowcroft’s letter (Yorkshire Post, September 1), but he has made a potentially catastrophic one of his own. Following last year’s general election, we should have had a minority Tory government, limited to measures approved by the “hung Parliament”.

Instead, a Con Dem coalition was formed by two promise-breaking parties, cheating their way into 10 Downing Street. Mr Meadowcroft hopes this country will benefit in economic improvement by the 2015 election.

I very much fear that he’ll be disappointed for “a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit” (Matthew 7.17)! The recent deplorable riots have shown that, as Ruskin noted in 1868, our neglect of the deprived “has reached a point where it begins to bear its necessary fruit”.

I don’t think it’s fruitful to say now that MacDonald should have united with Lloyd George’s Liberals in 1929. The inter-war history books reveal a complex situation.

With but 59 MPs, the Liberals, then as now, blocked socialist policies; and Taylor stresses the postwar lack of trust in Lloyd George, and his pragmatic style which did little for his understanding of Keynes’ economic theories.

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

At the last election I voted for a Conservative named David Cameron whose rhetoric on various soap boxes convinced me that here we have, at last, somebody who is going to stick his toes in, regardless of popularity, and who is going to get us out of the financial mess we seem to be in.

He seems to have gone soft on Europe, he has watered down his stance on immigration and quangos, and is now trying to save money by cutting funding to our armed forces. He promised to do away with the dreaded Human Rights legislation and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

He is now being hampered on tax policies and the streamlining of the NHS. All of this is due to the Lib-Dems acting like a lot of saboteurs because they won’t compromise.

If I was Cameron I would threaten to do away with the coalition and try a minority Government or go to the country. Nick Clegg wouldn’t like that, his party would be annihilated, and there would be no more cabinet salaries, and having read some of Alistair Darling’s memoirs I don’t think Labour would be very interested in an election either.

So, please Mr Cameron, while Europe is bleeding us dry and cutting away our sovereignty, please stick to your manifesto and we will be forever grateful.