SIR – It has been apparent for some time that Nick Clegg is not only a poor deputy Prime Minister, he’s also a lousy leader for the Lib Dems.

Where he claimed principle he offered political opportunism; where he offered concerned Government, he delivered an alliance with the Tories and drove his party into backing savage attacks on working people.

In the elections his party paid in blood for his sordid and unprincipled alliance with David Cameron.

Despite the loss of more than 700 English councillors and most of his representation in the Scottish Parliament, as well as the spectacular defeat of electoral reform, Mr Clegg still insisted that the Lib Dems have “a platform from which we can recover”.

Even after admitting that “to the many families in those parts of the country especially (Scotland, Wales, the great cities of the North), there are some very strong memories of what life was like under Thatcherism of the 1980s and that’s what they fear they are returning to”, the unfortunate Mr Clegg still insisted that the coalition’s efforts to reduce the national deficit must continue.

Max Hey, Fairway Grove, Bradford