Letter: Party that left us

Party that left us

Sir: The Conservative MP Iain Duncan-Smith doubts whether Peter Temple- Morris, his colleague who has joined Labour, ever was a Conservative (Parliament & Politics, 22 June).

Oh, yes he was. In 1960, when I was secretary of the Cambridge University Conservative Association he was a committee member. In the same association where Leon Brittan, Christopher Tugendhat, Peter Lloyd, Norman Fowler, Peter Viggers, John Gummer and Kenneth Clarke. Can one name more than two of these who have given the impression they support the present Tory party leadership?

While I, like Emma Nicholson and Hugh Dykes, moved to the Liberal Democrats, Peter has moved a little further, one might think. But we have all found more congenial accommodation. The older you get, the more set in your ways you usually become. So why do so many of us appear such rejuvenated left-wingers? Simple. The Conservative Party has moved away from us. It has become extremist. Any of us who believed in "one nation" have had to look elsewhere.

DAVID R MATTHEWS

Chairman, Hazel Grove Liberal Democrats

Stockport,

Cheshire