The chance of an anti-Tory alliance was lost in squabbling and intransigence

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Labour has dismissed forming a progressive alliance in the general election (Getty)

Had key individuals in the opposition parties been grown up enough to have recognised it, May’s snap election could have handed them the best opportunity to work together in order to ditch the Tories.

Unfortunately, squabbling and intransigence prevented them from achieving this, despite an obvious and growing appetite amongst voters. Barring a miracle, it seems it’s now too late for a progressive alliance this side of Thursday’s deadline for registering election candidates. That doesn’t preclude an alliance based on fielding paper candidates, but other than through local independent action, I’ll be surprised if that will happen on any scale.

In which case, it’s now over to organisations such as Compass, and to individuals such as Gina Miller, to collaborate on providing clear, non-party political direction on tactical voting. It could work – just. Whether it does or not, it could also lay the seeds for the new centre-left party of opposition. Labour, Lib Dems, and maybe Greens: beware!

Patrick Cosgrove
​Bucknell

Double bluff?

It occurs to me that Theresa May could have another reason for wanting a large majority. Could it be that that majority allows her to block the influence of the hard Brexiteers in her party and, after all the bluster, go for a soft Brexit after all? One more U-turn can’t hurt, surely.

Or has the strong and stable coalition of chaos driven me so far to distraction that I’m just reduced to clutching at straws?

Great Scott! We still have a month of this to go.

John Sinclair
Pocklington

What are the Tories plotting when it comes to the NHS?

Has anyone else come to the conclusion that the Conservative government’s reason for the insistence of seven-day NHS care and extending GP’s opening times is simply a ploy to increase the cost of the NHS so much that it becomes untenable, so has to be privatised?

John Hudson
Derby

Theresa May has lost her credibility over immigration

Theresa May has announced that a future Conservative government will continue with the aim of reducing total net immigration to the UK to the tens of thousands, a policy that Conservative governments have pursued unsuccessfully since 2010.

It was Theresa May who had the responsibility of carrying out this policy as Home Secretary from 2010-2016. She had the power then to bring down the non-EU element of total net immigration to that level, but failed to do so.

With this track record she has completely lost any credibility in her promise to reduce the total of EU and non-EU net immigration, to the level of tens of thousands.

Peter Coggins
Oxford

Nigel Farage now knows how British voters feel

It would appear the British have overlooked the irony in Nigel Farage’s outburst at the election of Emmanuel Macron as President of France. It would seem that Farage was led to believe that Marine Le Pen would win and maybe he even had a flutter on the result.

He now knows what it is like to be lied to by an extreme right-wing populist.

David Hughes
France

Fox hunting is not supported by the public

The article ‘‘Fox hunting campaigners ‘plotting to use Tory landslide to repeal ban’” suggests that supporters of hunting are planning to repeal the ban on fox hunting after the election.

This would be a mistake. 84 per cent of people in England and Wales want fox hunting to remain illegal. That’s the kind of public support most politicians only dream of.

Rather than pandering to a vocal minority who want to return Britain to the dark ages of animal cruelty “for fun”, we call on all politicians not only to reject any repeal, weakening or substitution of the Hunting Act 2004 but also to support its strengthening and its better enforcement.

Chris Luffingham – director of campaigns, League Against Cruel Sports
Surrey