I SEE Rory Stewart, the now-professing Tory-non-Tory, has quit to stand as an independent candidate in the forthcoming election for Mayor of London.

Let us not be taken in by his opt-out. When asked by Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News if he regretted his support for the Tory years of targeted austerity, he glibly stated that public expenditure had to be reduced!

How insensitive was that? It was and is an outrage that the sick, vulnerable, young and old were singled out and made to feel the brunt of Universal Credit and cuts in welfare, and subjected to impersonal and degrading interviews and reviews of their personal situations. He shows no contrition at all.

Public expenditure could have been reduced and reorientated through culling the Westminster obsession with Trident, the QEII (leaky) aircraft carrier and other vanity projects, for example.

Rory Stewart was part of that nasty Tory “regime”, let us not forget! He was part of that problem then, and seems to hope to wriggle out of being co-accountable for it!

John Edgar
Kilmaurs