I READ Claire Perry’s and Michelle Donelan’s columns with interest, in your paper dated March 24.

Ms Donelan says that she “did not seek election to take money away from disabled people”, adding that she believes in ‘Compassionate Conservatism’, surely a contradiction in terms if ever there was one.

With this in mind, perhaps she could use a subsequent column in your paper to explain why she voted in favour of the £30 cut in disability benefits and against the need for any sort of impact assessment to be carried out before the cut was to be implemented.

Naturally, it is axiomatic to state that Ms Perry voted in favour of the same cuts, though she omits this fact when talking about benefits spending in her weekly column.

Owing to the outcry from an appalled public, including several Tory MPs, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Ms Perry’s “great friend” Stephen Crabb, has been forced into another humiliating Tory party climb-down, similar to that which another of Ms Perry’s great friends, George Osborne, was forced into over cutting tax credits, after the nationwide disgust that was expressed at yet another cut in benefits to the poorest segments of our population by the Tories.

I challenge both Ms Donelan and Ms Perry to provide any example of compassionate Conservatism since 2010.

PHILIP BLUNT

Brook Street

Great Bedwyn