Nick Clegg, the coalition and the elephant in the room

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/08/nick-clegg-coalition

Version 0 of 1.

Nick Clegg says the Liberal Democrats have to look hard at what happened and why in order to come to terms with the beating his party took in the local elections (The centre will hold, Comment, 7 May). However, of the three lessons that stand out for him, he fails to mention the elephant in the room.

Let's recall what he said in his introduction to the party election broadcast in 2012: "Broken promises: there've been too many in the last few years; too many in the last 30 years. In fact, our nation has been littered with them … I believe it's time to do things differently … It's time for promises to be kept."

He may think the electorate have short memories, but the tuition fees U-turn has left its mark on the British consciousness, and his emasculated party will pay dearly at the next general election, irrespective of his attempts to absent himself from responsibility. Christopher Coppock Cardiff

• It was nauseating to read Nick Clegg's smear that Labour is a "false friend to the north". This from a government that last year slashed council funding to Kingston upon Hull by 9%, but only 2.57% for Kingston upon Thames; cut regeneration funding that went through bodies such as Yorkshire Forward; and even axed a £160m housing regeneration scheme in my constituency. The coalition's caravan tax will destroy thousands of jobs in East Yorkshire's caravan industry, exposing the emptiness of Clegg's slogans about manufacturing and "rebalancing the economy".

Even after the hyped personal allowance increase, from last month the average family with children will lose £511 this year. With tax credits cut and the educational maintenance allowance gone, child poverty is increasing. In Hull, stores close, food banks open and loan shark firms take over empty shops. This is the north under Clegg.

The coalition even wants to pay many northern workers less than those doing the same jobs down south. The Lib Dems are a genuine enemy of the north. Diana Johnson MP Labour, Hull North

• I deplore the insulting references to Nick Clegg in Monday's Guardian by Vaughan Evans (Letters) and Charlie Brooker (G2). Clegg has, from the start, been the scapegoat for the Lib Dems' honourable entry into coalition. It is indicative of the degradation of our society that people feel entitled to denigrate an honest politician. The coalition has been a poisoned chalice, and Clegg should not carry the blame. However, as an active Lib Dem, I believe the party must urgently withdraw from association with the Tories, and re-establish itself as an independent party with a distinctive contribution to make to society locally and nationally. Joyce Bell Lewes, East Sussex

• In his criticism of the previous government Nick Clegg says regulation was too lax. George Osborne, in 2006, wrote an article in the Times saying "we should look across the Irish sea" to learn how to run this economy. He thought we had too much regulation. Your so-called colleagues are laughing behind your back, Nick. Can't you hear them? Gren Gaskell Malvern, Worcestershire

• In two years Nick Clegg has succeeded in taking his party back to where it started from nearly a quarter of a century ago – no mean feat. If it persists in staying in coalition, the next stop on the train wreck known as the Lib Dems will surely be oblivion. John Chough London