Letter: A tactical stratagem that could bring about a Conservative defeat at the next general election

Sir: Far from being a 'hopelessly divided Opposition' (leading article, 8 May), the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, with their separate structures, constitutions and histories, are at one in most of the issues that have led the country to throw the Conservative Party out of the shire countries.

It was on a platform of strong local government and taxation, local democratic management of schools and health services, and properly financed care of the young, the old, the disabled and the unemployed, and of jobs and wealth creation assisted by government through investment in skills and technology in a free-market economy, that I, with the rest of the Labour Party, fought the last election.

The fact that Liberal Democratic candidates fought on the same platform in the general election, at Newbury and in the county elections, suggests that not only is the Opposition not divided - nor, increasingly, is the country.

Yours etc,

JOHN PILGRIM

Shepton Mallet,

Somerset

8 May