The Tory party should focus on righting the wrongs of the past 14 years - Yorkshire Post Letters

After reading Hilary Andrews’s ill-informed attack on the Labour Party (The Yorkshire Post, April 22) it was timely to turn the page and read the Shadow Health Secretary's article flagging up Labour policies that the Tories have nabbed.

Ms Andrews’s inaccurate statement that Labour “has no ideas on how to run the country” is a weak attempt to pour scorn on the Opposition.

It speaks volumes that the Tories are increasingly, desperately, focusing their attention on throwing insults at their opponents, rather than highlighting the merits of their own party.

I wonder why that is? Could it be that there is nothing positive to be said about the state of the nation after 14 years in government?

We, the electorate, who pay their salaries and expenses, have witnessed sleaze, law-breaking, the trashing of the economy, moonlighting to the tune of six-figure sums, five Prime Ministers, and Cabinet post changes too numerous to mention.

Poverty is on the increase; as the poor get poorer, the rich get richer and richer. And let’s not forget that, to cap it all, we have an unelected Foreign Secretary who cannot answer questions in the Commons - in other words, MPs paid by us to represent us cannot question the man paid by us to represent us on the world stage.

It is the government that has no idea, and no coherent ideas, on how to run the country - a government so consumed with clinging to power that its focus has become survival for itself, and to hell with the rest of us.

Here in North Yorkshire we see the Tory mayoral candidate spouting daft and unrealistic ‘promises’, presumably hoping we’ll be so delighted at the prospect of what he claims he’ll do that we won’t stop and ask how his grand (literally, in the case of buying that hotel) plans will be funded. I like to think that Yorkshire has far more sense than to be seduced by such pre-election gimmickry.

The Tory party and its membership would do well to focus on righting the many wrongs of the past 14 years, rather than on negativity towards those who bear no responsibility for the mess we’re in.

As for giving the vote to 16 or 17-year olds, why not? It would give them the opportunity to have a say in their future, a future that will hopefully be a lot brighter than the present we are living through today.