MR M Mulla, Letters, April 28, implies "we've never had it so good as under Labour", yet there was no mention of horror stories about old ladies spending days on hospital trolleys, shortages of bobbies on the beat, schools without teachers.

Labour prefers the rigidities of the Socialist state which allow them to stay in control and provide millions of jobs for their core voters in public service unions and in Socialist public services. The employees are more important than the public they're supposed to serve.

This is why the extra money will provide so little for those who need to be cured, or taught, or protected from criminals and when violent crime across Britain leaps by 11 per cent.

Also, this expansion of the unproductive sectors of our economy at the expense of the productive ones will send taxes soaring, stoke up inflation and interest rates and suffocate enterprise. This is why the Chancellor is having to borrow so much.

So, if things are really going as well as Mr Mulla believes, the government wouldn't have to spend on the never-never, meaning they will either have to go deeply into debt or ratchet up taxes. With an election only a year away it has to be the former but once the election is out of the way, people will suffer a sustained assault on their wallets, and public services will not be substantially better .

When comparing rates of unemployment, Mr Mulla seems to have forgotten that 1979 reflected a term of Labour administration and became the beginning of a Conservative Government which ultimately led to Labour inheriting a golden economy.

As Mr Mulla says, pensioners can benefit from the new Pensioner Credit but many are living below the poverty line, because of the confusing array of means tested benefits.

Vast numbers of pensioners are not eligible for extra benefits because, having worked hard and saved for their old age, they have capital just above means tested level -- and bricks and mortar won't pay bills.

So poverty in old age is robbing many people of a decent retirement, which is not the panacea implied by Mr Mulla.

J H HIRST, Councillor, Beardwood with Lammack ward, Blackburn