SIR - Your correspondent, A Holdsworth, uses the oxymoron “caring Conservatism” in denouncing the Tories and their part in the coalition, while B Murray reflects on the Liberal Democrats’ lack lustre street cred (Letters, October 6).

When will the Lib Dems recognise the power they have to muzzle the excesses of the Tories (who impoverish the poor and give a bonanza to the rich) and the thinly disguised contempt the same Tories hold them in?

Danny Alexander seems genuinely miffed that his party, the coalition partner that has more than played its part in keeping the good ship UK afloat the past four years, has not been credited.

At the world economics poker table, where missing the slightest twitch, tic or frown could spell doom, how has he missed this jackboot up the backside?

If he needs further evidence, he only needs to watch that Comedy Store wannabe, Boris (call me ‘Bully Bullingdon’) Johnson, bumble his way through a party speech that ‘jocularly’ sticks the boot in to Vince Cable before two minutes, ending with a verbal knuckleduster for Nick Clegg, referring to him as “the Clegger, Old Nick Clegg. Leave him to get on with whatever he does.” Coalition partners? Another oxymoron!

A Waterhouse, Barmby Road, Undercliffe, Bradford