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SIR – For many years, a Conservative majority has not resulted in Conservative governments.
Successive Conservative and Labour prime ministers, from John Major to the present incumbent, could have sat happily in each other’s Cabinets. With a couple of exceptions, no one in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet would have earned a place in Margaret Thatcher’s.
Consensus policies of state intervention, high taxation and wasteful public spending have characterised the last 30 years. Conservative values – a small state, low taxes, individual freedom and enterprise – have been honoured in the breach rather than the observance.
Now that Brexit has happened, we need a centre-Right government that will seize the opportunities to trade freely, and encourage private enterprise to stimulate the economic growth required to repair the social, economic and mental damage inflicted by repeated lockdowns. MPs have been sidelined as ministers govern by decree. Voters backed Tory candidates not just because of Brexit, but also in the belief that they represented a love of freedom, and limited state control. Their good faith must be repaid.