Labour manifesto pledges do nothing to challenge Tory rhetoric | Letters

While Labour's budget responsibility lock should wrongfoot the Tories as they struggle to say where the money is coming from for their NHS promises (Labour's big promise: no extra borrowing, 13 April), it is hardly offering us much real possibility of change in the years ahead. And change is what we need most; austerity is not working. This agenda is wrong and I am sorry Ed Miliband will not challenge this Tory rhetoric. For a start, we do not live in a "time of scarcity". Look at the record car sales announced recently, soaring house prices, pensioners pouring their savings into fancy holidays, second homes and buy-to-let properties.

We've never had it so good, "we" being the top half of our society and all property owners, especially pensioners like my wife and me. So who is Ed Miliband trying to appeal to? The comfortable majority? Or rather, why is he trying to appease them? I want to hear more about how Labour will help the rest of our societyand there are plenty of possibilities: simple matters such as a requiring all companies to pay their full-time employees a living wage, closing tax-dodging loopholes, revamping and adding a few higher bands to council tax rates, would all bring in more revenue.

Miliband and Labour have done their best to vilify and discredit the SNP and to dissociate themselves from any alignment

It was not unions that voted for Ed Miliband, but affiliated union members, a significant distinction