SIR – During the last general election, Nick Clegg implored voters to “do something different” and support the Lib Dems, because a vote for them was said to represent a different style of politics that was about openness, transparency and honesty.

In the run-up to the election, most Lib Dem MPs and candidates took a simple and transparent pledge not to support putting up university fees.

Such a pledge was taken freely and is the type of commitment that any elected candidate could keep by voting on proposals according to that commitment.

Since this Bill has been passed, the electorate should conclude that the Lib Dem strategy is indeed to “do something different”, it is to aid a party that is the living embodiment of all the things that cause cynicism about government and politics.

It is different because they are so lacking in popular feeling that they can make firm commitments one month and dump them almost before the ballot boxes are cleared away.

The only thing done differently is the speed with which they have changed their minds. Any future Lib Dem manifestos should be seen as published for comedy value. Or just a sad waste of trees.

Max Hey, Fairway Grove, Bradford