Letters to the Editor | 20 October 2007

Promises, promises

Sir: Fraser Nelson (Politics, 6 October) suggests that the approach that won David Cameron the leadership in 2005 was conveyed in messages like ‘social responsibility’ and ‘general wellbeing’. I, and I believe many others, decided to vote for Mr Cameron after he promised to withdraw the Conservatives from the EPP/ED Group in the European Parliament.

A new Tory strategy based on specific promises will only be successful if there is a genuine commitment to carry these out.

Richard Soper
New Zealand
Lib Dems and the EU

Sir: We read that again the Liberal Democrats are blaming their leader for their fall in popularity in the polls. Does it not occur to them that it is their policies which are unpopular rather than their leader?

Those of us who greatly admire the Liberal Democrat stand on civil liberties and unfair taxes such as Council tax, which is not based on the ability to pay, cannot reconcile this with their desire to subsume our country ever deeper into the EU. Can’t they see that this totalitarian regime, governed by a political elite, unelected and unaccountable to the people, is neither democratic nor liberal and is the antithesis of freedom and self-government?

Additionally, the Liberal Democrats are breaking their election promise by denying a referendum on the renamed constitutional treaty. How can they expect us floating voters to vote for them with this in mind?

Bill Woodhouse
Mappowder, Dorset

Our Christian foundations

Sir: ‘I don’t want to live in a society where I get stoned for committing adultery; I want to live in a society where I get stoned, and then commit adultery.’ So, epigrammatically, the Spectator/Intelligence2 debate about culture declares its conclusions (Lloyd Evans, 13 October). The motion was, ‘We should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western values.’

But what are these values? Low-brow hedonism, sex and shopping; abortion on demand, in fact as a means of contraception; a lewd and trivial entertainments industry and vile popular culture.