Brown’s scorched earth
Sir: Fraser Nelson (‘How to fund tax cuts’, 15 November) and your leading article both point out the desirability of tax cuts, but acknowledge that there is little scope for them. Gordon Brown is employing the classic scorched earth policy of one who knows he is going to lose the next battle but is looking ahead to defeating an enemy weakened by fighting over denuded ground. There is one way to fight this strategy — lose the next election. By supporting sitting Tory MPs but putting up joke candidates in marginal seats it should be possible to arrange a Labour majority in the next parliament, when the sky will be darkened with chickens coming home to roost. Brown will be left having to explain to a distressed electorate that our serious man has emptied the granaries, eaten the seed corn and the bills are now due. Even Mandelson couldn’t spin that one!
J. Monk
Via email
Sir: I approve of Fraser Nelson’s multipronged proposals for cuts in government spending. As an additional, simple but surely effective measure, might I propose that anyone with any of the words ‘Diversity’, ‘Equality’ and ‘Outreach’ in their job title be immediately relieved of their ‘duties’? This would be win-win as, apart from the vast savings, there would undoubtedly be a benefit to the sum total of human happiness. Philip Brooksby
Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan
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