John Harris seems beguiled by the Tories' rhetorical support for co-operatives and by Jesse Norman MP, the chair of Conservative Co-operatives (From John Lewis to workers' co-ops: these Tories love wrongfooting the left, 18 April). I fear he is being led astray. In reality, the Conservative-led government is no friend of the co-operative movement.
Chris Huhne is withdrawing support for solar renewable energy co-operatives, forcing many to close down. Michael Gove has taken the funding away from the co-operative schools project. Francis Maude has shelved plans for more co-operative Sure Starts and housing trusts. Labour's 2010 manifesto promised, on the prompting of the Co-operative party, to mutualise British Waterways, the quango that runs Britain's canals, giving real power to consumers. The government instead plans to turn British Waterways into a charitable trust – a less accountable quango.
Wherever one looks across this government's programme, you can see support for co-operatives being threatened or withdrawn.
Chair, parliamentary group of Co-op MPs
• Robert Philpot of Progress says he does not support the sell-off of public services (Letters, 15 April), but favours mutuals. Progressives have always been in favour of mutualising private companies to empower the workforce and customers. But this government last week announced the privatisation of the administration of civil service pensions under the guise of mutualisation.
Without any consultation, staff at My Civil Service Pension were told they will be stripped of their civil service status – meaning, among other things, they will not have access to the civil service pensions that they administer. This is not a mutual arrangement, it's an imposed sell-off that leaves the workforce in a weaker position. The language of the labour and co-operative movements is being hijacked to soften opposition to what is, in all but name, naked privatisation. My union is not fooled and we are committed to opposing this sell-off attempt and others that will inevitably follow.
Mark Serwotka
General secretary, Public and Commercial Services Union
• George Osborne is not being hypocritical in dismissing PFI as discredited when out of office and promoting it when in government. It's poor value for taxpayers, but good for the Tory party because it channels taxpayers' resources from paying for services to the balance sheets of Tory corporate supporters. Perhaps he sees it as the mirror image of fair-wage policies which channel potential profits from company shareholders to the wage packets of workers who may be trade union members, and thus the corporate supporters of the Labour party. Class conflict is alive and well and living in Downing Street.
John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle upon Tyne