SIR, Following last week’s leaflet through my letter box promoting the reinstatement of garden waste collection which Clovenfords never had in the first place I have now received a leaflet from a different political party extolling the many virtues of our local member of parliament.

Many claims are made on the great “Record of Delivery” that the local member’s party have made in Westminster. Last time I looked there was a coalition government in power and his party were the junior partners who invariably made up the numbers to pass decisions that were going through in any case.

Although opinion polls cannot be a hundred per cent accurate it would appear that his hold on this constituency for the coming election is at least tenuous. Every Tory and their granny will vote but the Lib Dem vote cannot be assured.

The Borders’ Aye Been vote will at least guarantee that the fall in Lib Dem votes will not quite reach the disastrous depths of 300 or so that happened in the Rochester by election last week.

However let us hope that a tedious leaflet showing the Lib Dems ahead of the Tories in histogram block diagram with the other parties nowhere does not come through the letter box.

And if we get the usual argument that it is a two horse race, it may well be true but this time it will not be a Westminster Tory party versus a mercenary Lib Dem party again willing to go into another unholy alliance. This time a home based Scottish party will be the challengers.

I am, etc.

Derek Philips Clovenfords