Letters: Balance of blackmail in a hung parliament

These letters appear in the 22nd April issue of The Independent

John Major’s interventions in politics these days are usually well founded. However, in his criticism of the potential role of the SNP in a hung parliament, he is wide of the mark.

The last time we had a daily dose of blackmail, it was under his premiership and from the europhobes in his own party, who ran his government ragged for five years.

Were David Cameron to find himself at the head of a Conservative government with a small majority, or worse still, reliant on Ukip, he too would be at the mercy of the same faction. It would be impossible to govern under such circumstances, with the inevitable uncertainty provoked by bitter infighting over Europe damaging the UK economy and undermining the recovery.

Were he forced to turn to the DUP, presumably that would constitute the same unacceptable nationalist interference in the government of the UK as that of which Sir John Mayor accuses the SNP.

Much as I fear a government beholden to the right of the Tory party far more than one in hock to the SNP, the logical conclusion is that the only reliable coalition partners are the Liberal Democrats, whose continued presence in government would avoid all these divisive scenarios.

Ian Richards

Birmingham

Televised political debates are dire, but Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to make Ed Miliband Prime Minister was a rare exception. I suspect the First Minister has just done the slickest diplomatic two-step since Stanley Baldwin bundled Edward VIII and his American floozie into exile.

She knows a Labour-SNP alliance would be a “grotesque hybrid” and send so many votes to the Tories they will be able to form a viable minority (maybe even a majority) government.

But she also knows the Tories can give her a deal that Labour dare not contemplate: some version of full fiscal autonomy for Scotland in return for English votes for English laws.

She will certainly find it easier to strike a deal (with the below-the-counter economic safeguards) with the pragmatic duo of Cameron and Osborne than the fickle Two Eds.

Dr John Cameron

St Andrews

The reaction of the English electorate to the prospect of the SNP holding the balance of power in the House of Commons is instructive. The general reaction is that Scotland should not be allowed to dictate to the English.

English voters now understand how the Scottish, Welsh and Irish electorates feel about being dictated to by the English.

Chris Elshaw

Headley Down, Hampshire

A Libyan Dunkirk, with us as the Germans

Lord Ashdown favours sending armed forces to north Africa to destroy boats which are about to ferry desperate people towards Italy. Philip Hammond and Theresa May appear to be thinking on similar lines. Others helpfully suggest that you could tell such vessels from bona fide fishing boats by the lines of people queuing to board them.

Sounds a bit like Dunkirk 1940 to me, but with Paddy Ashdown directing the dive-bombing of the paddle-steamer Royal Daffodil as it comes inshore. I’m also imagining a cruise liner terminal at Southampton. What would these bright sparks have to say, I wonder, if some foreign state scoped out a line of golden oldies queuing with their hand luggage on the quayside and proceeded to sink the MV Queen of the Caribbean with all hands?

Michael McCarthy

London W13

Italy’s Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, has compared the smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean to the trade in African captives which officially ended in 1807. He said: “When we say we are in the presence of slavery, we are not using the word just for effect. We can’t accept this kind of trade in human lives.”

In 1783, following the terrible Zong massacre in the Atlantic which saw the murder of 132 Africans at sea, there was a debate about whether or not Africans were chattels and whether the ship’s owners were liable for compensation for their loss. The arguments may have changed, but Renzi has made the point that African people dying horrifically as captives at sea (for hundreds were locked in the hold) shames us all and makes a mockery of the “progress” of the intervening 200-odd years as well as shining a spotlight on woefully shortsighted western foreign policy decisions.

Deryck Browne

Acting CEO, African Health Policy Network, London E15

We need a Marshall Plan for Libya. The overthrow of the Gaddafi government has caused chaos and bloodshed there. One result is the stream of desperate people drowning in the Mediterranean as they flee the country.

The US, Europe and the Gulf States have the money, military power and other resources required to deliver a Marshall Plan. If they had the political will to do so they could restore peace and prosperity to Libya. David Cameron should be leading the way.

Brendan O’Brien

London N21

You report Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as saying: “Europe... is turning the Mediterranean into a vast cemetery.” Since the bloody end of European empires, Africa has turned Africa into a vast cemetery of Africans. The Mediterranean is just the place where whey dump the excess dead.

The UN was set up to facilitate the negotiations and the peace agreements that would end such genocide.

Martin London

Henllan, Denbighshire

Cameron’s empty promise on housing

At the last minute, and clearly for electoral purposes, David Cameron promises to further the divisive rot begun by Margaret Thatcher and sell off 1.3 million social homes. This with a promise of one-for-one replacement.

No government, least of all a Tory one, has come anywhere near such replacement, and the current rates of building make such a claim more than usually laughable.

We have a cartel of big, greedy and unimaginative “volume house-builders”, a chronic shortage of land except for brown fields, the difficulties with which the builders cite as the reason they cannot afford to build even the derisory amounts of affordable housing their planning consents are supposed to require.

More and more property is foreign-owned and empty, and the planning regulations are more labyrinthine than ever. Even the smaller developers willing to provide desperately needed social housing are obstructed by inertia and nimbyism at every turn.

Mr Cameron’s promise is even more hollow than previous ones.

Sam Kendon

Bristol

No, Mr Cameron, you do not solve an affordable homes shortage by selling off affordable homes.

Waiting lists for council housing and rising homelessness are just two indicators of the desperate need for genuinely affordable homes – homes which are already in dangerously short supply.

Working families stuck in the expensive, insecure private rented sector and waiting desperately for a decent, secure place will now know that they will never get to the head of the queue, because all of the social homes in their area will be sold to the highest bidder as soon as they become available.

Homes sold under the right to buy have a nasty habit of reappearing in the private rented sector – replacing low rents with high ones. Which is the point of course. The message to those struggling to pay sky-high private rents – let alone save for a deposit – is that the ladder will be pulled away from them before they can take the first step.

Julie Partridge

London SE15

New city on the south coast

Your editorial of 18 April shines a spotlight on our neighbour, Bournemouth, one of three towns (with Christchurch and Poole) at the heart of our South East Dorset Conurbation.

In his report No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth, Lord Heseltine stressed the importance of joined-up local government if such a “city region” is to achieve its economic potential. Our present divided and costly structure of local government needs to be replaced by a single unitary authority for the urban area. This must surely happen before Her Majesty grants the royal charter which you have predicted for Bournemouth.

We demand a local referendum to settle the issue without delay.

John Probert

Secretary, Uniting The Conurbation, Poole

We value our bookshops

David Lister (18 April) writes: “Amazon is the place we go to for books, CDs, DVDs and much else.”

“We”? How sure is he that “we” Independent readers consider it moral that an overseas company can put bookshops out of business? Does he think “we” condone those who browse in the remaining bookshops, decide what to buy, and then order online?

Raymond Fischer

London SW13