I WAS one of the 29,000 that voted Conservative in Stroud at the last election as mentioned in Howard Price’s letter in the SNJ of June 28.

It seems that even when they win, Stroud Labour activists are still not happy and we should still not be allowed to vote Conservative.

I was sad to see the online abuse directed at Sarah Lunnon for wanting people to vote Green (I almost voted for her in protest).

I was also one of the 33,618 in Stroud who voted for Brexit so I guess Howard will not be pleased with that either.

It was a close run thing though as there were only 600 votes between the two parties so giving free beer for voting was a winner.

We all saw that Stroud was covered in a sea of red and yellow posters while conservative voters had to stay anonymous for fear of intimidation.

I think the fact that poor old David was dragged out of a happy retirement, all be it with yet another qualification for the job (congratulations on his PhD in rural affairs) shows the desperation of the Labour party to grab as many seats as possible before the boundary changes.

I did write to him before the election to suggest it was time for a younger more diverse candidate but it seems that selecting a middle class, white male pensioner is a safe bet for Labour in Stroud.

He told me he had been persuaded by friends, family and especially the party to stand again.

As he said in an article since the election he is older now so he will not be putting in as many hours as he did the last time he was MP.

So I would suggest that he takes on and mentors a future younger Labour candidate (maybe even a woman) to share the load now and for when he goes back into retirement after the next election (good constituency MP no doubt).

When I was in a local cafe recently I quizzed a couple of first time voters and asked them if they knew which party brought in university tuition fees, they both decided it was Margaret Thatcher and the Tories.

They were quite surprised to learn that is was the Labour party in 1998.

I then asked which party first started privatising the NHS again they decided it was Margaret Thatcher and the Tories.

But again I had to explain it was the Labour party in 2003.

It was also a surprise to them that the Labour government had signed up all but one of all the Private Finance Initiatives (private funding for NHS hospitals) between 1997 – 2010 putting the NHS in £222 billion of debt.

Even the beloved Royal College of Nurses have stated that PFIs were a disaster and the money paid out to private companies in interest and fees instead could go to double the number of doctors and nurses employed in the NHS.

These are inconvenient facts for the Labour party and explains why the older voters who can remember many a Labour government tend to vote Conservative.

As for my two first time voters, Margaret Thatcher left office before they were born but one of them although he decided she was a bad person was not aware she had died. (The legend lives on).

Gordon Bennetti

Uplands