This seems a timely moment to remember the words of Nick Clegg in 2010 when faced with the anguish of those whose faith in his party’s progressive credentials had just been shattered: “There were some people, particularly around the height of the Iraq war, who gave up on the Labour party and turned to the Liberal Democrats as a sort of leftwing conscience of the Labour party … The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for leftwing dissatisfaction with the Labour party. There is no future for that; there never was.” Sad to say, I agree with Nick.
Emma Jones
Oxfordshire
• Good editorial (6 May). The most important sentence? “It is fundamental to remember that a general election chooses a parliament not a government, still less a prime minister.” People frequently misstate this, whether for malign or self-interested reasons or because they genuinely don’t see the difference. The truth can’t be stated too often.
David Martin
Glasgow
