Madam,

Every Labour MP must be making a sacrifice to the gods in gratitude for their party being plucked from the jaws of death and saved from a certain Armageddon in the June 2017 General Election.

No doubt scholar Boris Johnson is also reflecting on that old Latin rendering, quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat (whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad), and truly wondering if it was all a terrible nightmare in which a village idiot concocted the Tory manifesto.

Indeed a very simple formula for a great Tory landslide and to consign Labour to the history books would have been not to erode the Tory pledge of a cap on long-term care, not to means-test winter fuel allowance, and inexplicably do away with pension guarantees (triple lock) – truly a triple whammy against the elderly and most vulnerable in our so-called civilised society.

Not satisfied with this madness they even turned the other end of the voting spectrum against them by offering the young absolutely nothing but pain – whilst the opposition offered Utopia saying they would not only abolish university tuition fees, but reintroduce maintenance grants, wipe out student debt, give free lunches to pupils, have a minimum wage of £10 an hour and lower the voting age to 16.

Added to all this was the prospect of further austerity and pain for the rest of the voting public - surely a Conservative Perfect Storm and a very good lesson on how to alienate voters.

Yours etc,

Dave Haskell, Cardigan.

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