The morning after the general election I was awoken by mocking texts from a Tory-voting family member and was informed by email of the cancellation of future work due to expected cuts in arts funding. The following week, my partner, after 12 years of diligent, assiduous and conscientious care work, was informed of a reduction in both her basic pay rate and allocation of working hours. Her (Tory-voting) mother’s response to this was: well, you know how to survive, you’ve been poor before. Such smug triumphalism can be heard in the words of the frontbench. “Evil” may be the wrong word (A reality check – the Tories aren’t all wicked and wrong, Martin Kettle, 5 June), but “stupid” and “uncaring” seem accurate. How can this government keep the nation united when it is tearing families to bits?
Name and address supplied
• Martin Kettle needs to get out in the real world more. Spending some time in a Citizens Advice office would, in my recent experience, be a good start. There he would find numerous employees being sacked in their first two years of a job for no good reason, with no rights of redress, and others unable to use employment tribunals because they cannot afford the vastly increased upfront fees. He would see a constant stream of disabled people being mentally tortured by the fitness-to-work test, and jobseekers seeking foodbank vouchers after benefit sanctions on the most arbitrary of grounds. There is no such thing now as one-nation Toryism, and the effects of Tory policies are certainly wicked and wrong. The only acceptable Tories now would be powerless ones. Wake up to reality, Mr Kettle.
Steve Smart
Malvern, Worcestershire
• It’s surely the clearest demonstration of the success of the Tory strategy that “clear-eyed” liberals like Martin Kettle spend their time pondering how “well judged” many of David Cameron’s policies are, while we “tribalists” overly concern ourselves with what the UK will look like after £30bn of public spending cuts.
Malcolm Spaven
Gladhouse, Midlothian
• Perhaps Martin Kettle should have a chat with your leader writer about George Osborne, wickedness, and the subject of one-nation Toryism. With 98% of the cuts to fall on social security and public expenditure, it’s not the words, it’s what you do. That’s reality.
Graham Woodford
Newcastle upon Tyne
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