SHAME on “proud Tory” Gordon Bennetti in his letter (SNJ July 19) for trying to confuse young voters!

He missed out one very relevant fact: it was Tony Blair’s New Labour that brought in the policies he mentions, with the exception of PFI which was brought in by Tory PM John Major’s government (but continued by Blair).

This is why we now have Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party Leader, as he notably voted against all of these policies and still believes in free tuition and a non-privatised NHS, which are now in the manifesto as official Labour Party policies.

The snap election didn’t allow enough time for the Stroud Labour Party to find another candidate so David Drew was an obvious choice (in any case, Labour currently has 119 women MPs to the Tories 67).

He had previously said he thought he’d be too old to fight another election in 2020, but we haven’t got there yet.

It’s great that he’s now on the front bench as Shadow Minister for Defra as it’s most relevant to this area and his recent qualification.

I trust that all the Green supporters who voted for him will be very pleased at this appointment.

There were a few oversized “vote Conservative” posters dotted around the area, but greatly outnumbered by Labour’s far smaller ones (some of which had been vandalised).

There was one just up the road from me, in a pensioner’s garden; (I was very tempted to draw a picture of a turkey voting for Xmas on it, but refrained from doing so)!

As she still drives a car she wouldn’t be affected by the removal of bus passes (just yet), but I wondered if she can easily afford to heat her home and wouldn’t miss her annual 2.5 per cent minimum increase, especially as food and fuel prices are going up due to Brexit (which is yet another Tory disaster).

Even if she could, it just shows selfishness by not being concerned for those less fortunate than herself.

I hope that pensioners will all have long memories, as the Tories will no doubt still want to introduce these policies, given half the chance.

Actually, instead of being “proud”, Tory voters should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, for voting for a party which is overseeing the destruction of the NHS and of our society in general. Fortunately here in Stroud Tory voters were outnumbered by voters who had much more good sense.

Wanda Lozinska

Stroud