ON Thursday, July 14 at 5.15pm I rang the NHS Direct Helpline. After being on hold for four minutes I was informed that my nearest NHS dentist who was taking new patients on was in....Oldham.

As one of the richest, most developed nations in the world with a party in power who represent the working class and moreover, in a cabinet member's constituency, this surely can't be right?

Where has all the money gone? Where has all the ideology gone? Basic dental care is surely the least we can expect for our taxes? Along with our nation's teeth, something is very rotten about all this.

Consider also this: at 10.15pm on Thursday, July 14, the war on Iraq had cost $122,931,391,979. The total is escalating every minute of every day.

A goodly portion of this sickening sum was paid for by the British taxpayer. In America the money could have insured 52,692,458 children for one full year of health care.

Of course these issues are linked. On April 16, 1953, President Dwight D Eisenhower said: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

IAN HODGSON, Eldon Road, Blackburn.