Clegg was right

Nick Clegg was absolutely right to say – eight years ago – that Germany had been more successful in recovering from the effects of the war than Britain (your report, 22 April). Although the process of de-Nazification was deeply flawed, the Germans rebuilt their cities (infinitely more devastated than ours) and democratic institutions, and they are still the economic powerhouse of Europe.

Britain, on the other hand, slipped back, exhausted, into the old class war, low expectations, and – as Clegg said – "delusions of grandeur" and xenophobia.

How predictable that the Tories and the right-wing tabloids are frothing that Clegg is "unpatriotic and unfit to lead". Nonsense.

DAVID ROCHE

Leslie Street

Blairgowrie, Perthshire

When the Lib Dems displayed their "Tory VAT bombshell" poster, divulging a 3p increase would be required to balance the books, and that it "will cost you" an extra 389 a year, it raised a question: how much would each one of us have to spend to achieve the extra burden?

Working through the Primary 7 arithmetic, starting with an item costing 100 prior to any VAT, to reach an additional 389 we would require to spend 15,665 per person. That is equivalent to buying a new car, carrying out roof repairs, landscaping a garden and buying a new suite of furniture each and every year. And all that out of an average gross salary of 25,000!

DOUGLAS R MAYER

Thomson Crescent

Currie, Midlothian