Hope for an end to Tory rule has the smiles returning to our

Readers respond to an article in which Zadie Smith writes that real change is on the horizon after the Tories ruined Britain

Re Zadie Smith’s article (‘Here comes the sun’: Zadie Smith on hope, trepidation and rebirth after 14 years of the Tories, 3 July), I’m hoping against hope (we’ve been here before) that on Friday, the miasma of greed, self-centredness and downright stupidity will have evaporated and we will have a government whose fundamental purpose is to support, serve and improve the whole of the UK and not just to rip the lead off the roof and steal the last lightbulbs. A government that genuinely means to roll up its sleeves and sort out the mess.

I’m from the generation of free orange juice and cod-liver oil, smaller-scale secondary schools that weren’t businesses but educational establishments, and hospitals where you saw physiotherapists as soon as – and for as long as – you needed, where patients lay in wards, not corridors.