This Government has done great harm to the most vulnerable people in our country, in its pursuit of an economic policy that has been unfair to the poor and the disadvantaged, and has not even succeeded in its goal of deficit reduction.

The NHS has been starved of cash with the grotesque result that we are now witnessing people in one of the richest countries in the world dying while they wait for an ambulance or, even, in the ambulance while they are waiting for a space in the accident and emergency department.

Sarah Wollaston is a very hard-working MP and I admire the commitment she shows to her constituents.

She is a civilised person, which is more than can be said for most of the current members of the chaotic Conservative Parliamentary Party.

The fact remains that she has voted repeatedly for this disastrous policy of austerity, and she cannot escape partial responsibility for its dreadful results. Sometimes, in the face of such cynical policies, a fairly extreme form of protest is justified and I believe that leaving a coffin at Dr Wollaston’s office was one of those occasions.

Her claim that the message implied by the coffin should be judged in the light of the murder of Jo Cox is, quite simply, not supported by the facts.

The coffin carried a very clear, explicit and written message that its purpose was to highlight the fact that government cuts have been responsible for many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

To imply that she felt personally threatened by the coffin is clearly disingenuous.

Dr Wollaston’s anger about the coffin was clearly genuine but I think that may have been provoked by shame and guilt rather than fear.

Tim Hailstone

Venn Lane , Stoke Fleming