Tory policy announcements: duplicity and hyperbole | Letters
Describing the chancellor's speech as "hyperbole that crumbles under scrutiny" is a kind way of making clear that it was nothing more than a cynical jumble of half-baked, half-true assertions (This party split the country. A cash splurge can't repair it, 1 October). We've grown used to - but shouldn't accept - duplicity and hyperbole. Examples of misdirected but eye-catching spending include how the problems associated with social care, of quality, availability and cost, will not disappear as a result of a hospital-building programme. Communities cut off by swingeing cuts to public transport as a consequence of reductions in local authority funding that once used to subsidise such routes will not benefit from plans to upgrade roads - or the introduction of contactless payments on buses that don't run.
Of course low-paid workers will benefit from significant increases in the national minimum wage, but such gains will disappear under the weight of fast-rising food and fuel bills as quickly as they emerged.
Les Bright
Exeter, Devon