"LABOUR has done a great deal for Blackpool" goes out the parrot cry of Jack Croysdill, Labour's local spokesman (Citizen, February 21).

There's as much substance to that claim as there is to the smoke rising from the ten million pound burnt-out holiday centre for illegal immigrants.

I'm sure this point must have been pondered by emergency patients as they lie on their trolleys for hours on end in the corridors of our hospitals in the fourth richest country in the world.

The police service are just about ready to impose a work-to-rule, and they'd be on strike right now if it wasn't for the anti-strike legislation. The number of officers leaving the service is at an all-time high and in real terms the numbers and efficiency of the police is falling fast.

This, under Labour, is reflected in the country's massive growth in crime and especially violent crime. Under the stewardship of our Labour Council moreover, Blackpool has a crime rate even higher than the national average.

Mr Croysdill knows very well from the part he played as a member of the local council that in spite of many warnings and contrary to advice given to council officers he and his Labour colleagues repeatedly voted for policies which bring into the town vast numbers of persons who are intent on living outside the mainstream of society and who exist through being actively engaged in criminal activities.

In Blackpool itself the people of the resort are still waiting for the promised findings of the investigation -- albeit a sham -- into the admitted unlawful activities of a previous Labour Leader of the Council. Oh yes, -- they really are looking after the town and its people, aren't they.

What our ruling councillors are really good at is looking after number one. Blackpool Labour, along with their Lib-Dem allies, have recently voted themselves a rise of massive proportions. The Opposition, incidentally, have rejected absolutely the selfish, greedy action of those councillors whom Mr Croysdill finds so worthy of admiration. In fact, Opposition councillors have actually taken a reduction in their allowances.

The town is an absolute shambles and no matter how much money in grants and now rates (30 per cent in two years) is given to our ruling councillors, the situation grows worse by the day. Money given to an inefficient and incompetent organisation, continues to be spent inefficiently. The ratepayers of Blackpool are to be given another rude awakening when they receive their next rates bill. Come the next election, I suspect they may well be inclined to remind Jack Croysdill's wonderful Labour councillors, of the dangers of being so profligate with their money.

Peter Roscoe, address supplied.