Tory tactics

The Conservatives are making priorities of the national debt and the bloated public sector, individual freedom, gay rights and religious discrimination, devolution and electoral reform, the European Union and assisted suicide. I cannot think of a list of topics better calculated to turn voters off on 6 May.

The shadow cabinet has not grasped the big idea – to attack Labour on its own ground, for its failings as a socialist government.

The Tories should hammer home the crude statistics of "13 wasted years", showing how the gulf between rich and poor has widened; how child poverty and illiteracy have increased; along with illiteracy, numeracy drug abuse and the proportion of school-leavers with no educational qualifications; how the benefits culture has spread; how the provision of new housing has collapsed and the amount of council tax siphoned off by local authority pension schemes has grown.

VIVIAN LINACRE

Marshall Place

Perth