Thursday's Letters: Shocking pink is underlying colour of the Lib Dems

All three main parties have had to make big adjustments in order to improve their appeal to the voters.

Labour under Tony Blair, for example, was compelled to move to the right to make the party electable again. He and Gordon Brown adopted market- orientated economic policies that brought considerable success, favoured by the inheritance of a very sound financial foundation from the outgoing John Major government and an extremely benign low inflation global economic climate. But Brown eventually dissipated all this as his socialist instincts, combined with his hubristic over-confidence, went into overdrive to plunge the country into a ruinous debt situation.

Likewise, David Cameron was lumbered with a Conservative Party in a deeply demoralised state resulting from the ERM debacle and sleaze fiasco. To cleanse the party's sullied reputation Cameron embarked on a green-leaning environmental campaign with the adoption of a more liberal social outlook.

The Lib Dems under Nick Clegg also changed their election strategy to move to a more popular consensus. With his Indiana Jones performance on television, exploiting his undoubted skills in personable presentation, Clegg has managed to differentiate his party's challenge from Labour and the Tories with a refreshing new look appeal.

But there are fundamental flaws in the Lib Dem position. Like his party, Clegg is an internationalist to the very entrails, completely indifferent to the intrinsic democratic deficit enshrined in the EU constitution and our continuing loss of sovereignty.

Furthermore, the party is probably left of Labour in its core attitude to immigration, with its amnesty policy, I believe, a locomotive to demographic disaster.

So far, attacks on these standpoints, by the Tories, have been weak and ineffectual but represent the difficulty of bringing these issues on to the election stage.

Nevertheless, it reveals the politically correct nature of Clegg's party, that, with its opposition to nuclear power stations and its subservience to everything green would scar our countryside with countless wind farms while their toughness on crime discloses a genuine softness.

Generally, however, on the doorstep, Lib Dems present a more moderate agenda, masking their core beliefs in an "all things to all men" opportunistic approach with their political colour ranging across the spectrum in the fashion of a chameleon slithering across some early Picasso.

Fundamentally the colour is a shocking pink so watch the gloss when you vote; it may be seductive but the consequences for the country will be for real.

From: Gordon Lawrence, Stumperlowe View, Sheffield.

We need more common sense

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

IT isn't only change we should be demanding at the General Election but the return of basic common sense.

Common sense to severely restrict immigration, which will become unmanageable as more and more East European countries, who will have free movement to come here, join the EU.

Common sense to stop giving welfare benefits to the workshy.

Common sense to stop the ludicrously sloppy prison conditions which

only attract criminal behaviour.

Common sense to charge non-UK residents for NHS care.

Common sense to make the welfare of victims the priority.

Common sense to stop lottery-sized pay-offs being awarded for failure.

Common sense to stop chasing council officials with obscene pay offers and let them go elsewhere.

Common sense to charge drunks for hospital A&E treatment.

Common sense to withdraw from the corrupt and dysfunctional EU, to

govern ourselves and spend taxpayers' money on our own people.

Common sense to reduce the number of MPs to reflect their vastly reduced workload and responsibilities until we withdraw from the EU.

There are so many avenues where common sense should be applied it must be easier to say – common sense to start using common sense once more.

A choice of regulators

From: JG Riseley, Harcourt Drive, Harrogate.

I UNDERSTAND from a hustings meeting that the Liberal Democrats would toughen the regulatory system for the banking sector to prevent another financial crisis and to help us out of the recession.

They will regulate to stop reckless and irresponsible lending by the banks, and also to force banks to lend money to businesses that they would otherwise reject as having too great a risk of defaulting on their debt.

So will this be two different regulators, visiting on alternate days, or one regulator with a split personality?

Hope for new beginning

From: Maureen Hunt, Woolley, Near Wakefield.

IT'S not surprising that when Robert Browning, the poet, was abroad he wrote "Oh to be in England now that April's here". There can be no

place more beautiful in the world than our country in the spring.

This year the blossom and flowers seem to have been more vivid and prolific than ever. Could this be due to the long, cold winter or is it simply the imagining of a septuagenarian who can't quite remember just how fantastic it was last year and believes each spring is better than the last?

It certainly gladdens the heart and raises the spirit during the electioneering frenzy.

Let us hope that the promise of spring, of new birth, growth and new beginnings, can be fulfilled today.

Never have we been in such dire need of a change of direction.

We cannot continue in this downward spiral. We must have a Prime Minister and Government that can restore our trust in democracy, renew our broken society and inspire us to work together to extricate ourselves from our massive debt.

Winston Churchill was our great wartime leader. We hope David Cameron will share some of his vision, determination and persistence and that he can get us back on the right track from which we have deviated for far too long.

The task ahead is mammoth and the Conservatives will require a clear mandate from the electorate in order to accomplish their mission.

Putting the people first

From: Graham Cracknell, Burn, Selby.

WHAT the parties seem to be overlooking is the purpose of Government – that being to govern the country for the people of this country – not for America or Europe or Afghanistan but here in the UK.

In doing so, they should look at every aspect that controls our daily lives with a view to making life better for us. So, from the womb to the tomb, they should look to providing the very best in healthcare; education to a standard that each individual can hope to attain; employment for all those capable of work; adequate housing; a pension which is not taxed until it exceeds the average earnings and a law and order system which offers protection to the decent citizens and punishment of offenders.

How do we fund all this? Firstly, take a long look at the excessive spending in Europe and withdraw from the elements that we can do without (and there must be many) and then pay accordingly; pull out of Afghanistan as we will never succeed in the conflict there so why waste money and, more importantly, lives; stop paying out benefits to those who don't contribute, ie, the bone-idle and those coming here for hand-outs.

A decent Government would then use its resources to help regenerate industry which would put people back to work who will then pay taxes and the country would once again prosper.

Cloud cuckoo land I know, but I had to say it.

Change of coin

From: Barbara Garden, Strickland Avenue, Shadwell, Leeds.

HOW long would it take for Nicholas Clegg to have us trading in euros?

Brown cannot rely on claims of experience when he caused the mess

From: Tim Sherbourne, York.

WHEN Labour came to power in 1997, we had the second strongest economy in Europe, the pound was worth e1.43 and $1.6.

We had very little borrowings, not down to any magic – just by

receiving two years' tax in one, by bringing the tax system forward a year, selling the utilities and having a good Chancellor in Ken Clarke.

Gordon Brown, as Chancellor, soon robbed all the private pension funds, sold half our gold reserves at rock bottom price and created in excess of 80 stealth taxes on top of his usual favourite fuel and national insurance (a tax on jobs).

Labour then employed an extra one million or more civil servants, whose pension funds alone aren't sustainable, but yet are expected to be paid for by the private sector.

Labour has ploughed vast sums of money into health and education services with no conditions, which for the most part has been creamed off the top and left very little benefit to the man on the street.

The banks are a joke. Labour allowed, even encouraged them to operate a huge risk culture, creating a massive bonus system for the top men, then when it went wrong (common sense dictates that house prices can't keep rising in value), the taxpayer had to bail them out, with yet again no conditions – and allowing bankers to still take their bonuses.

When the EU brought in the other poorer countries into the system, the existing ones were allowed seven years before allowing in bulk immigration – every other country took this on board, but Tony Blair said the UK would accept them straight away and into the bargain we

were denied the promised vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

How does Gordon Brown believe he is the man most experienced to get us out of this economic disaster, when for the most part, he has caused it?

The madmen's own goal

From: Alan Chapman, Beck Lane, Bingley.

WE have learnt from the world of professional football that Manchester United has been proclaimed the richest club. This is incredible as they have debts of 716.6m.

Clearly this comes from the unrealistic values of financial madmen.

Do you want to know a secret? Our Government borrows that same amount of money every 38 hours. This provides evidence of supersonic

financial madmen.

You will never guess – New Labour is asking the public to renew their mandate.

Safe seats

From: Peter Buckley, Haigh.

THE political silence over agriculture hit the point (Yorkshire Post, May 1).

I fully agree with less intervention, not more. However, safe predictable seats are politically much less important than marginal seats, both in rural and industrial areas.

Detail lacking

From: GJC Reid, Mayfield Road, Whitby.

I FIND it amusing that the party leaders, especially Mr Brown, can be so precise about the other parties' proposals while remaining delightfully vague about their own.