SIR - In response to the current perception of “centrism” and “moderate” political views, and that anyone who dares to stand to the left of this postage stamp sized consensus risks being called a cultist or extremist. During the post-war decades, the political centre was a mixed economy of regulated capitalism, a robust welfare state and the public ownership of vital infrastructure. This position was preserved by governments of all colours from the mid-forties through to the late-seventies.

This previous centrist orthodoxy viewed the financial deregulators and their “greed is good/privatise everything” mantra as fringe lunatics and knew that this was an economic reincarnation of 19th Century economics that caused the financial depression of 1929.

The problem with the modern definition of centrism is that it holds on to most of the current right wing economic principles whilst cloaking itself in the sheep's clothing of social “nanny state” liberalism. Its spokespeople, Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Alan Sugar etc, have little criticism of the current political climate despite its multi-theatre of faults, but instead prefer to frequently bash the opposition which hold on to post-war centrist principles that served the majority well.

George Hitchcock, Southlands, Baildon