Conservative candidate Tim Barnes

• IN the report on the hustings in Pimlico (Voter: ‘We are in a living Hell’, June 21), I read with surprise about the Conservative candidate Tim Barnes, “…blaming London Labour mayor Sadiq Khan and the Labour-run Westminster City Council for the lack of suitable housing”.

I guess it would not be gracious to point out that, until the last local elections put Labour in power in Westminster for the first time since the boundary was drawn, this borough had been ruled by the Conservatives?

On 20 June 20 the same three candidates were present at another hustings in St Anne’s Church, Soho.

It was largely relaxed, with thoughtful answers to questions, and both Rachel Blake (Labour) and Edward Lucas (Liberal Democrat) did not resort to easy digs at the Tories.

But Barnes again couldn’t help sniping at the mayor and the Labour Party. Credit must be given for his moving display of party loyalty as he tried to defend our current prime minister – and the other inept, self-serving, shysters of the last 14 years – but sniping at his opponents cannot alter such facts as the great Brexit lie, massive growth in food banks, managed decline of the National Health Service and the fact that we can no longer holiday at the seaside because of raw sewage. Because the market is always right!

It was surely a hard job keeping a straight, earnest, face as he stood to represent the party that gave us almost a decade-and-a-half’s nightmare courtesy of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, but I wonder if he continues with his political career if he will be blaming the Labour Party in a few years’ time for the aforementioned Tory sins?

DAVID GLEESON, W1