SIR - Tanya Graham the Tory candidate for Bradford South, (Letters, March 2) like our regular LibDem contributors, assumes that the people of Bradford are completely stupid.

She suggests that we can stick with the Tory austerity programme (i.e. vote for the stick that has beaten us all senseless for 5 years) or ‘return to more borrowing and higher taxes’ Firstly, Ms. Graham will recall that 10 per cent of nothing is still nothing, so higher taxes are barely an issue for most.

Secondly this government have more than doubled the national debt, having borrowed almost £1 trillion in 5 years Finally the much trumpeted ‘Tory employment figures’ are actually part-time, casual, short-term contract, zero-hours contract, or self-employed ‘devices’ designed to blur the true nature of ‘unemployment’ in the UK The reality is that all these ‘devices’ fail miserably to provide a living wage, so that those ‘workers’ that are a victim of these ‘devices’ are still topped up with benefits from taxpayers.

That is to say, the taxpayer is actually subsidising employers to increase profits for them and their shareholders To call that what it really is, would be – ‘socialism for the better off ‘. So much for Tory values.

Christopher Hindle, Osterley Grove, Bradford