IN answer to A Edwards’ woeful attempt at looking to other contributors to the Guardian comments pages to bolster weak arguments in support of a weak Government, it should be noted that:

The Energy and Efficiency Industrial Partnership, that he/she lauds, is taxpayer-funded and was unveiled by David Cameron simply because he is Prime Minister.

It is primarily an EU initiative that has nothing to do with the Conservative Party.

Neil Robertson, group executive of energy and utility skills, blames the current government for ‘the utility sector’s notable absence from the government’s industrial strategy, its framework for economic rebalancing and growth’.

So any ‘growth’ appearing from this initiative is despite the government and not because of it.

Robertson goes on to admit that the EEIP is driven not by philanthropy but self-interest when he states that: According to labour force analysis conducted by EU Skills, about 50 per cent of the utilities workforce is set to retire in the next few years.

Current recruitment to fill these positions, particularly technical roles, ‘is dismally insufficient’.

And he adds: “We need 40,000 technical recruits over the next 10 years. But if we continue on the current steady state for recruitment, we will be able to fill just 25 per cent of those roles.”

Robertson sees the solution in the education of young people and bringing in skilled people from abroad.

Neither of those things will happen if, one day next June, we wake up with a Cameron and Nigel Farage alliance.

As for ‘freebies’, the PM and Chancellor — who seems to not know the difference between debt and deficit — have been giving them to bankers in the form of billions of taxpayers’ money for the past four years on the pretext that you have to pay decent bonuses to keep them.

As Billy Bragg once said: “Just what are the incredible qualities that bankers have that teachers, soldiers and nurses do not?”

Socialism is thriving in this country, despite us having a right-wing government, because the one per cent are taking all the wealth and sharing it among themselves.

For that we can thank the ConDems.

Graham Brinksman Fearnhead