Patrick Wintour is made breathless by what he sees as Policy Exchange's intellectual fecundity (Compassionate Conservatives find it's time to think again, 6 March). It is good for a thinktank to generate lots of ideas, but it helps if they are good ideas. On housing and planning most of Policy Exchange's ideas are half‑baked.
Whatever the question, liberalisation is the answer. The planning system was created "as part of a drive for a socialist utopia in the 1940s" and therefore needs to be dismantled. Those living close to developments should be given cash to persuade them to accept it: planning out, bribery in. Northern cities such as Liverpool and Bradford are beyond hope and their residents should be encouraged to move south – an idea David Cameron described as "insane".
In their enthusiasm for dismantling the planning system the bright young men in Policy Exchange remind me not of sober, pragmatic Tories, but of the ideologically driven Trots I encountered in my youth. Driven by messianic zeal, they skew the evidence to fit their world view – policy-based evidence making, not evidence-based policy.
All this would be fun if it wasn't for the fact that Policy Exchange has had a big influence over the government's thinking on planning. It is imperative that, in finalising the national planning policy framework, ministers listen to those with real experience of planning – including the Conservative local authorities across England who have sought to improve the draft – and not just to bright ideas that should never have left the seminar room.
Shaun Spiers
Chief executive, Campaign to Protect Rural England