SIR – Re P Ruthven’s comment (‘Promise was broken’, Letters, January 14), on Lib Dems in Government who felt obliged to back an increase in tuition fees, I know of many parents who have had to break promises to their children: funds run out or a storm brews up and that trip has to be cancelled.

In this case, the storm turned out to be a huge mountain of (growing) debt left by Labour.

Is this “treachery” as P Ruthven claims? Was this a planned, underhand course of action? Of course not, far from it. While many Lib Dems hoped for an alliance with Labour, they ended up washing their hands and walked away from Government.

If Labour really wanted to protect students, they wouldn’t have introduced tuition fees in the first place. Why did they when the economy was doing so well?

Labour could have been more positive about coalition talks with the Lib Dems rather than leaving it to the Tories and Lib Dems to sort out the mess. These cuts are as much Labour’s fault as anyone’s.

Coun John Hall, (Lib Dem, Windhill & Wrose) Pennithorne Avenue, Shipley