JOHN CLARK’S attempt to tar all parties with the same Tory brush does the Liberal Democrats a serious injustice.

Without the party reining back the Conservatives, we would have suffered deeper cuts and a slower recovery. At the same time, while the Liberal Democrats have being forced to make unwelcome compromises, the party’s policies are benefitting millions of people.

Changes for the better that have gone straight from the Liberal Democrat manifesto and into Government policy and the pockets of local families, including:

• Delivering an £800 a year tax cut to 24 million people;

• Stopping decades of sliding value in pensions under both Labour and the Tories;

• A £2.5bn pupil premium for schools to help our children;

• School meals being made free for younger kids.

It is impossible to believe that these changes for the better would have appeared anywhere on the Tory agenda or happened at all had it not been for the Liberal Democrats.

Councillor Clark speculates on what would have happened had the Tories been allowed to govern as a minority. For a start, none of the above would have happened.

Worse still, it is highly likely that within a year there would have been a meltdown, chaos for the economy, and a second election which only the Conservatives could afford to fight.

Under those circumstances we would have almost certainly seen a majority Tory government and the weak and vulnerable going to the wall.

Liberal Democrats stopped the Conservatives doing their worst – as they would do with Labour.

We are not all the same.

Howard Keal, Norton