Tactical voting is our only hope of toppling the Tories

Timothy Garton Ash’s article on campaigning in Putney (On the streets, I’ve seen how disunity is a gift to Johnson, Journal, 9 December) reminds me of a recent conversation with a Conservative party activist in that constituency. The product of a major London public school (followed by Oxford and the City of London, naturally) and with her own children at the same institution, she informed me how disgraceful it was that Labour was considering ending VAT exemption and charitable status for public schools.

When I challenged her over the Tories pushing a million less-privileged children into poverty, she replied that poverty is just relative and people can feed themselves for 50p, so councils should not give the poor money, they should give them recipe cards so that they can improve their financial management. That, not cleverly phrased election soundbites, is the true voice of the Conservative party. Tactical voting is crucial.
Christopher Clayton
Waverton, Cheshire

• I was brought up in the 70s, in a single-parent family. We lived in a council flat in Tottenham, and I went to a “difficult” comprehensive school. We had little money, but we did have just-about-adequate benefits to support us. (Mum worked in a shop for part of the week, but it wasn’t enough.) Amazingly, I got a small grant to stay at school and go to sixth form. And there was a (means-tested) full grant for higher education, which covered living and tuition properly, so I could manage to go to university. And luckily I did so, to a damn fine one.

Since then I’ve had a varied career, including being a company director and serving on the board of an NHS hospital. But despite earning a relatively high salary, it has never occurred to me to vote anything but Labour. Seeing the way in which successive Conservative administrations have brutally kicked away all the supports that helped me to learn, grow and thrive have only made that resolve stronger. I’ve never wanted to kick the ladder away.

The latest Labour manifesto reinforces this belief that only Labour can fix the many problems across the country, reduce inequality and improve all our lives. And only they of the major parties are truly serious about tackling the challenges of climate collapse and species extinction.

But the polls don’t look good. So special measures are called for. Which is why I am, reluctantly, urging everyone I know to vote for the person, of whatever party, who has the best chance of defeating the local Tory. So that others can have the same chances I did.
Graham Head
London

• While it is becoming clear that the only way to deprive the Conservatives of a majority will be to vote tactically, I understand that voting in a general election for a party one feels little or no affiliation to will feel almost impossible to many people. However, the fact is that, while the Labour party is campaigning on the basis that this is indeed a general election, the Conservatives are actually fighting a second EU referendum.

Had a referendum been called, the risk of the remain vote winning this time was high; by calling an election, the Conservatives have allowed Labour to pursue the wide range of manifesto promises normal in such events, while their own narrowly focused “get Brexit done” message has cut through like an arrow.

While remain voters’ attention will have been distracted by the divisive tribal offers of the other parties, a Conservative win will inevitably be hailed as confirming the leave vote. If hesitating remain-leaning voters can see the nature of the battle in this light, it may help to make a tactical vote feel more palatable. Otherwise, leave voters will have won a referendum, while remain voters will have lost an election.
Helen Johnson
Sedbergh, Cumbria

• The polls look pretty bleak, and the thought of a hard-right Tory government is enough to depress anyone. However, there is some hope that tactical voting by only a few thousand people in 40 or 50 constituencies could prevent this horrible prospect. In Scotland it is clear that there is only one tactical vote required in Tory constituencies, and that is to vote SNP. As a former Labour member and MEP I would appeal to Labour voters in Scotland to vote SNP and get rid of the 13 Scottish Tory MPs who won seats in the last election.
Hugh Kerr
Edinburgh

• John Harris’s article (Whoever wins this week, Tories should worry about their future, Journal, 9 December) reflected some of my experience of information on a local level. Most of the non-social-media canvassing here has been by leaflets (Labour, Yorkshire party and Brexit party all received), but the Conservative material leaves much to be desired: the first two leaflets concentrated on trashing Labour, with no discernible policies of their own identified.

The two that arrived on Monday had more policy to offer. None of them, however, says anything about the local candidate, a late substitute for one who had to be withdrawn, or what might be on offer for the constituency itself. His name does appear on just one leaflet, in letters less than two millimetres high.

I have gleaned more information from the weekly local paper, and if I were he I would feel insulted by Central Office, in whose name all the communications are issued, rather than being from the local organisation. I can only feel that the Tories seem to have lost confidence in the representative democratic system and moved on to a presidential one without telling us. Given that Wakefield is supposed to be a target constituency, I regard this as deeply lazy, and an insult to the electorate.
Fiona Mathers
Wakefield, West Yorkshire