One is that many voters nowadays can see the fundamentally contradictory position of those who espouse liberalism of the economic kind, yet crusade against any forms of liberalism in the law and social policy. Electors are rightly suspicious of such inconsistency.

The second problem is that whilst there may indeed be a very substantial body of voters whose ears prick up when politicians speak about encouraging respectful behaviour, good neighbourliness and responsible parenting, it does not follow that these same peoplehave any appetite for other preoccupations of the US Christian Right, such as trying to roll back hard-won legal reforms of the past 40 years on issues such as abortion and homosexuality.

People are sensible enough to realise that the causes of today’s social problems are complex and that attempting to turn the clock back to a more austere and less tolerant age will do nothing to eradicate or even mitigate them.

What Britain needs today is a modern Conservative Party that has 21st-century solutions to 21st-century problems, and that wishes to engage with people to achieve these ends, rather than lecture to them.

JOHN JACKSON
Edgware, Middlesex

From Lieutenant-General Sir Martin Garrod

Sir, With a significant number of Tories throwing their hats into the ring for the leadership of the Conservative Party, it has been dispiriting to see the squabbling in progress over the method of choosing the future leader. We can only hope that the system finally chosen will produce the right answer.

One of the fundamental issues over the next decade or so will be the place of the United Kingdom in Europe and throughout the world. Will Great Britain continue to be a powerful nation which holds its head high, maintaining strong links with the United States, or will it become an insignificant county of a European superstate, with our magnificent Armed Forces disappearing into the miasma of a toothless “European Army”?

We must not imagine for one moment, following the French “non” and the Dutch “nee”, that the EU constitution is dead. It is merely pausing for reflection, and will return with renewed vigour in continued attempts to drag us into the maw of a federal superstate.

Let us hope that a true leader of the Conservative Party and of our nation will emerge.

MARTIN GARROD
Deal, Kent

From Mr Mark Crossman

Sir, The job of the next leader of the Conservative Party is not to appeal to the membership, who are going to vote Conservative anyway, but to convince deserters to return.

He can do this only by having the confidence of the majority of his MPs who, once they have elected him on his message, sell that message to the country with one voice.

MARK CROSSMAN
Newmarket, Suffolk

From Mr John K. Thompson

Sir, Richard Ottaway, MP, appears to characterise the Conservative Board’s draft document A 21st Century Party as representing the views of the party’s members (letter, July 26).

The draft was composed by a small central group without consultation with the wider membership, and merely represents one strongly centrist strand of thought. Members are effectively being invited to stick to selling raffle tickets to each other until the next election, when they may be useful as a source of funds and leaflet deliveries, but should not be expected to deliver opinions.

JOHN K. THOMPSON
(Chairman, Tetsworth branch, South OxfordshireConservative Association)
Tetsworth, Oxfordshire

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