Election aftermath

Nick Clegg wants proportional representation, too, and he will insist on having several Lib Dems in Mr Cameron’s cabinet.

Many Conservatives will be furious about that.

Also, Mr Cameron wants to implement immediate cuts in government spending while Lib Dem Vince Cable says that would plunge Britain back into a recession.

My guess is that the Conservatives’ traditional wing won’t go along with the Lib Dems being given what they want. They are disillusioned with Mr Cameron already because he has taken the party to the centre left.

He did it to appeal to the middle class Labour voters and his party’s hard right went along with it in the hope of returning to power.

Mr Cameron had loads of money to spend. Lord Ashcroft of Belize and other rich donors saw to that.

And he had a discredited and exhausted Gordon Brown and his third-rate Labour government to take pot shots at.

But he didn’t achieve his expected majority. And the traditional, right wing Tories are very annoyed.

Jim Allan, Hartlepool.

WE hear much speculation about a possible arrangement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, and of the alternative if that fails of one involving Labour and the Lib Dems, but I have heard no mention of a Conservative-Labour pact.

One might expect each party to be looking for the deal which involves minimum deviation from its own manifesto. Many would assume the widest policy gulf is that between the Conservatives and Labour.

But, in fact, each of these parties has reinvented itself after a succession of defeats in recent decades and both now fight for the same middle ground. The Lib Dems, at least in terms of their stated policies, are far from being in the centre.

There remains, however, a legacy of Labour and the Conservatives each seeing the other as its principle rival for power and of each defining and justifying its own position with reference to a demonised image of the other. They may feel the need to maintain the illusion of substantial difference in order to preserve the loyalties of their traditional and tribal support bases.

But perhaps we now find ourselves in a situation where the need to engage effectively with reality suggests a letting go of illusions.

John Riseley, Harrogate.

THE ways in which the results for UKIP, the Green Party and the BNP have been treated since the General Election have mirrored the differences in treatment before the poll.

The Green Party has been (rightly) congratulated for winning its first Westminster seat, but its indifferent performance elsewhere has not been mentioned.

It won 285,616 votes in 335 seats. UKIP has (less justifiably) been congratulated for winning 917,852 votes, but without mentioning that it had to contest 572 seats to reach that figure.

The BNP has been derided for failing to win a single seat, but there has been no mention that its average vote in its 339 constituencies was 1,662 compared with UKIP’s 1,604 and the Green Party’s 852. The BNP secured 563,743 votes in 339 seats.

The reality is that all of the small parties were eclipsed in a campaign in which the result was seen to be uncertain.

Furthermore, hundreds of hours of news publicity were lavished on the main parties, compared with only minutes for the smaller parties. However, while UKIP and the Green Party were invariably given favourable treatment, BNP coverage was nearly always hostile.

Andrew Brons, BNP MEP, Yorkshire and North-East Lincolnshire, Harrogate.

YOUR prejudice against the Labour Party in Durham City seems to know no bounds. Prior to the election you routinely predicted (maybe hoped) that the Liberal Democrats would defeat the well-respected Labour candidate, Roberta Blackman-Woods.

They didn’t – she maintained her majority of more than 3,000 against the (now) thrice-defeated Lib Dem candidate, Carol Woods.

Perhaps driven by the bitterness of disappointment you then chose to reduce this convincing majority to 207, which you describe as a “narrow escape”, in your report on the outcome of the Durham City poll headlined “Leadership needs to be re-energised” (Echo, May 8).

Your political editor, Chris Lloyd, then chooses to impugn the voting choice of the citizens of Durham by suggesting “they remarkably chose to stay with Labour” in his article headlined “Go hang yourselves” (Echo, also May 8).

Maybe that’s because they have more sense than you journos – they know a Labour government is more likely to represent their interests and they know they had a first-class candidate in Dr Blackman-Woods. Perhaps The Northern Echo should catch up with public opinion and try to stick to the facts.

Bob Hudson, Durham City.

■ Footnote: Apologies again over the wrong figure given for Roberta Blackman-Woods’ majority in Saturday’s report – a correction and apology was carried in yesterday’s editions.

The correct figure of 3,067 was included in Saturday’s round-up of results from our region.

AFTER the polling stations closed and the votes were being counted Lord Mandelson was adamant he was going to stand by Gordon Brown as leader, declaring he was the right man for the job and that only he could deliver us from the mess that the rest of the world had got us into.

Later, as it became plain it was going to end up as a hung parliament with the Tories taking the lion’s share therefore giving Nick Clegg some leverage, Jeremy Paxman reminded Lord Mandelson that Mr Clegg was unlikely to do a deal with Mr Brown as leader.

Paxman asked what Lord Mandelson thought should happen in such circumstances and suggested a change of leadership might be needed.

As the cogs turned in his devious brain, quickly calculating the most beneficial option for himself, was it my imagination or did I hear a cock crow three times?

Dennis Parkinson, Trimdon, Co Durham.

I AM writing to highlight the lack of judgement shown, in my opinion, by the people in Redcar who voted out their previous dedicated Labour MP in favour of the Liberal Democrat option in last week’s General Election.

Well, folks, if you think things are bad now, just wait until you see what George Osborne and David Cameron have in store for you now that you have given them the option through the backdoor with the Lib Dems.

Maureen Boettcher, West Rainton, Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside.

TWO things emerged from the shambles of the General Election that gave me quiet satisfaction.

The first was the hammering that the BNP took. The second was the solid fourth place won by UKIP in terms of votes cast.

David Cameron might rue the day he opted not to offer the people a vote on continued membership of the EU. If he had shown the courage to do so, with UKIP support he would be sitting in No 10 now with a handsome majority.

David Lacey, Durham.