Left or Right?
From Mr Michael Steed Sir: Matthew Parris (Another voice, 19 May) should know better than to claim that the LibDems have lurched to the left. He is absolutely correct to point out that on several issues their politics lie not between the two bigger parties but in a more distinctive position. But he mistakes the reason.
Now that both larger parties have lurched to the right on their willingness to spend enough to maintain good public services, especially education and health, the Liberal Democrats have stood by a position — traditional for them since Asquithian Liberalism moved on from the Gladstonian stage — of favouring adequate public spending on such services.
Arguably. this is a form of conservative thinking, and certainly it differentiates the Liberal Democrats from the fiscal consensus between Michael Portillo and Gordon Brown. But a lurch to the left?
After all, do 'left' and 'right' really help to describe any major party's position now? Perhaps the most significant lurch by the Conservatives is not to the right but towards 'the position occupied by Michael Foot's Labour party of the early 1980s' (to which Mr Parris claims the Liberal Democrats have moved). But then he ignores the 1983 Labour attitude to the European Community, whereas arguably that was the most significant indicator of how extreme their position was.
Michael Steed
Canterbury From Mr Beverley Pyke Sir: Well done, Matthew Parris (Another voice, 5 May; 'Stand up for the forces of conservatism', 12 May). Ought I mischievously try to extract from him 'a repudiation of his former opinions'? One can almost forgive his previous transgressions because his political commentaries are fair, and these two contributions confirm his sound and forthright attitude to the race 'hatred' nonsense that so clouds the impor tant issues of today. For far too long we have suffered the PC scourge of the racerelations industry, and a breath of fresh air was long overdue.
May we hope that William Hague will now show a similar magnanimity by apologising for his mistaken belief that Europe would ever allow us to be 'In Europe but not governed by Europe', and grant the electorate the opportunity to endorse the wishes of the great majority by undertaking to hold a referendum within the first six months of the next Conservative administration?
Beverley Pylce
Alderney, Channel Islands
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