Sir, Although David Cameron’s victory was widely anticipated, it was heartening for those of us who deplore what has become virtually a one-party state. He looks and sounds different, and much more in tune with younger people. Will he be able to ally that with an ability to bring together the obvious talent in the party in a cohesive opposition, in a way that his three most recent predecessors have failed so to do?

He will need, in addition to a strong team on the front bench, an adviser and confidant of the calibre of the late Sir Keith Joseph. If Mr Cameron manages to find such a person, his chances of success at the next election would look decidedly rosy.

ANTHONY HOLLIS
Camberley, Surrey

Sir, With friends and members like Lawrence Freeborn (letter, Dec 7) already proposing to vote Lib Dem at the next general election, David Cameron has got his work cut out.

What a quandary for him: do such “dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives” want a retrenchment back into the unelectable Right, or a lurch to the left of the Lib Dems?

Maybe David Cameron would do well to bank their subscriptions while sticking to his stated intent to woo sane voters in the middle ground.

MARK WINSPEAR
Kettering, Northants

Sir, There has been much discuussion of policy but little reference to the underlying principles expressed in David Cameron’s speech accepting the leadership of the Conservative Party.

He spoke of liberty as a means to free people to organise and run their own lives and of trusting people so that they are encouraged to live responsibly. He asserted that there is such a thing as society: how else do we learn to speak, to think and to make progress through specialisation of roles? He spoke of encouraging the voluntary sector, which can do much to strengthen society.

David Cameron seems to have in his sight a smaller state of more capable citizens. Once that is clear, we can worry about particular policies and where they will lead.

PETER INSON
Wembley, Middx

Sir, David Cameron’s advisers and campaigners seem, in the main, a rather unappealing group of Old Etonians and Oxford graduates, who, like Cameron, have the faint air of people who have never had to rub shoulders with the mass of the electorate.

Understanding the issues and challenges that “ordinary” people face surely requires at least some sense in which those challenges are shared. A life confined by the quads of Eton and Oxford, and the crescents of Notting Hill, hardly prepares one for the government of Notting Hill itself, let alone the rest of the country.

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