SIR – Most people in this country have found the experience of the Conservative-led coalition government a painful one.
While chancellor George Osborne and his supporters have revelled in carrying out neoliberal austerity measures, which we are told are absolutely necessary, this has proved as false as his accompanying comment that “We are all in it together.”
Cutting the deficit (which has barely been reduced at all) has been the excuse for attacks on the welfare state. These have included the notoriously punitive and unnecessary ‘bedroom tax’ (spare room subsidy), the workfare and benefit sanctions regime and the malicious targeting of disabled people.
There has been the unrelenting rise of food bank Britain, where even people in work (eg zero hours) are forced to rely on charity to feed their families.
Add to that, the stealthy privatisation of the NHS, the contempt for green measures to deal with climate change, the tax cut for millionaires and the axing of a million public sector jobs. Mr Cameron used to talk of “Broken Britain”– he’s certainly made that a reality in many parts!
The Tories say they deserve a second term to “finish the job” (ie helping their friends and levelling most pain on the majority). They must not be allowed the chance!
David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose
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