WE THANK those who took the time and trouble to respond to our letter (May 28).

We try to make our decisions based on facts and are genuinely seeking to find what persuaded local people to vote Tory in the election, so we were rather amused by Mary Land’s use of the word ‘arrogant’ – of course she has the right to keep her views to herself, but we were asking for people to volunteer the reasons they felt made Tory the right choice.

The jokey letter left for the new chancellor in 2010 saying ‘there is no money left’ was of course strictly true, and still is.

If we tried to pay off our debts, the Treasury would be empty, and it is only by selling off our assets, and printing ‘Monopoly’ money that we are still afloat. We saw no figures in any of the letters, but Darling’s last budgets reduced the deficit to £118bn by 2011-12, and in 2015 now stands at £92bn, a decrease of only about 9bn a year, despite all the appalling austerity cuts.

No-one commented on the nearly one million visits to the foodbanks last year by people (with a Doctor’s or Social Workers note) when they had no money to buy food, and who would otherwise be begging on the streets. So we guess that is ok?

Barry Gibbs mentions 800,000 new jobs which sounds great, but try looking at those jobs. Some 300,000 are self-employed and mainly earning less than the minimum wage, and many are on 30 hours or less a week – that’s called a part-time job.

And of course there are those on zero-hours contracts, so how many real jobs are there in those 800,000 working 40 hours a week on at least a living wage?

Mr Gibbs also mentions that inflation has fallen to its lowest level ever. No government wants very low or zero, or even negative inflation, as they rely on that to wither away their debts.

We completely agree with Alan Smith’s bitterness that a union man should not be forced to contribute to the Labour party. We understand that Labour is already taking steps to abolish the rule.

In the last election, we were very tempted to vote for the Green Party, as the only one seriously committed to slow our lemming-like rush to destroy the planet, but just for the record, we voted for the Lib Dems, as having the best man locally

DAVID & ESTHER WILLIAMS

Alexander Drive

Cirencester