Nick Cohen is right to be angry that Save The Children need to make an appeal to feed the British poor ("Our children go hungry for want of Tory compassion", Comment), but wrong to say that "compassionate conservatism" is an oxymoron. It is, rather, the defining notion of the "Big Society".

We need to wake up to the fact that Mr Cameron's big idea seeks a return, not to our Victorian past but rather, beyond that, to a pre-industrial era wherein all welfare funding for the lower orders was provided at the strict discretion of the more affluent.

There was no significant fiscal-based support for the poor, but merely an obligation on the part of the better-off to comply with the seven Corporal works of mercy which required them, as Christians keen to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, to feed the hungry, tend the sick, house the homeless etc.

It is this, the compassion of the giver, whether driven by religious duty or slick conscience-tugging TV adverts, that is to be the mainstay of our future welfare provision, with lower levels of provision coupled with lower direct taxation putting money into the donors' pockets.

The coalition, with little opposition from Labour, are currently assessing, through a process of trial and error, just how much state spending on welfare can be replaced by charitable giving, so we can expect more cries for help from charities as more and more responsibilities are pumped into them until their "pips squeak" .

This is the Tories' brave new world, "compassionate" in giving, "conservative" in lowering taxes, a system that failed miserably in the past and will surely condemn millions to penury in the future.

Is it any wonder that Mr Cameron and his chums struggled to clearly explain their vision.

Colin Burke

Manchester

Nick Cohen's article on child hunger certainly rang a bell. A grandson – not a child, but a young adult – became ill last May and was passed as medically unfit to work. But despite completing a 55-page claimant form with help from the CAB and obtaining a GP's letter detailing his illness, he still has not received a penny of the benefit to which he is entitled.

Fortunately he has had the support of his family but if one did not have this, what is one supposed to live on – thin air?

His father contacted their local MP and he is now hoping to get the problem sorted out for my grandson but most people when they are ill – unless they have family or friends' support – are incapable of getting the financial help they need due to the complexities of the system which appears to be designed to make it as difficult as possible for people to claim benefits to which they are entitled.

Valerie Crews

Beckenham

Kent

Nick Cohen's statement that "the unemployed do not vote, do not know how to protest to MPs and councillors or write to the press" was totally inaccurate and deeply offensive.

He should retract the statement and make an apology to those he insulted. For his information, the unemployed do vote, they do protest to MPs and councillors, some of them are councillors, and they do write to the press.

What is more, they are sufficiently astute to have understood long before Nick Cohen that removing the Conservatives from power was a national priority.

Beryl Nicholson

Newcastle upon Tyne