CAN I ask Councillor Tim O'Kane (Letters, February 20) if he is proud of the way his party has managed the health service since coming to power in 1997?

Even the Prime Minister has had to admit that the problems of the health service are worse now than when they came to power.

And please don't blame the last Conservative government -- as that argument is wearing very thin.

We keep hearing from government ministers that more and more investment is going in to public services, yet they go worse, not better.

The Conservative Party does not criticise the health service, only the incompetent way it has been managed since this government came to power.

Even the Health Secretary himself said recently that they should have invested more in their first term of office.

COUNCILLOR D PEARSON, Blackburn with Darwen Council.