2 letters:Lib Dem election hypocrisy + CBI again

As Nick Clegg has already cleaned up all the  available prizes for duplicity and disingenuity, it seemed unlikely he could surpass previous levels; however, the prospect of election embarrassment, and a political career cut short, has clearly inspired him to trawl at new depths.(Nick Clegg :George Osborne is a very dangerous man,06/05/15) Does he really expect voters to return to the Lib Dem fold simply because he now views future Tory cuts as being "socially and morally unacceptable"? Are we all expected to forget the role he and his party played in passing through parliament the most callous legislation seen since the days of Thatcher, the most unfair tax cuts for the ultra-rich, and the beginning of the destruction of the welfare state and privatisation of the NHS? Are we to suppose the ending of the Education Maintenance Allowance, within weeks of the coalition`s formation, had nothing to do with the constant support his party gave to the cruel and unnecessary austerity measures? 

      Clegg has evidently no more respect for the electorate than the Tories, whose election strategy appears also enshrined in the belief that the voters are mugs. As a consequence,therefore, it is totally impossible for any of us to recall that it took almost three years of coalition-inspired austerity before any pennies dropped, and Clegg uttered those infamous words, stating that it was time to "hardwire fairness into government policy"!

   Clegg`s accomplice, Danny Alexander, will not be alone with "breathtaking hypocrisy" prominent in their thoughts, and one can only opine that, even if forming a government takes  "a lot longer" after the election, the time will be well spent, as long as the duplicitous Lib Dems are excluded.

The proposal by Ed Miliband to allow workers on zero-hours contracts to `convert their contracts into a regular job after only three months instead of a year` is praiseworthy, but what does the fact that employment law specialists are already warning that bosses will sack staff `just before the right to a full contract kicks in`, tell us about attitudes prevalent among businesses today? (Give zero-hours workers regular contracts after 3 months-Miliband,01/04/15) It appears that workers are merely exploitable material, there to be used and cast aside, so that the companies` policies of profit-at-all- costs can be continued.

     Typically the CBI director-general, John Cridland, is not content with describing Miliband`s idea as `demonising flexible contracts`, and, naturally, `ẁide of the mark`, but even threatens the probability of `a return to day-to-day hiring`. How much longer can we allow company bosses to hold the country to ransom like this? Whilst the Tories want to return government spending to levels last seen in the 1930s, business clearly wants employer/worker relations to re-visit the Victorian era!

      Cridland would  serve the economy`s interests far better if he instructed his corporate chiefs to pay all of their workers a living wage, to demonstrate much greater restraint in relation to their own renumeration, and, of course, pay the correct amount of corporation tax, which, he should not need reminding, is around 18 percentage points below the rate paid by companies in America!