NO sooner is the non-event of the year done and dusted when up pops that bastion of New Labourism, spinning Jack Croysdill, back on to your letters page.

I, of course, refer to the General Election, where I strongly believe that Jack has little to crow about other than the number of seats that his party won.

He quotes Joan Humble in stating that people only vote if they have something to vote against. My view is that this is basically wrong and should actually be that people only vote if they have something to vote for! Was it not the New Labour Party themselves that trumpeted in 1997 that the Labour vote was a vote for change?

As a life-long Labour voter I simply stayed at home because I felt that there is very little difference between New Labour and the Tories. Some may say that I should have voted Lib Dems instead, but frankly they are so much in the pocket of Tony Blair it is difficult to distinguish between them, other than the name.

I also found it extremely difficult to even consider them after reading some of the nasty and inaccurate letters from some of their members in the run-up to the election.

It would be very interesting to hear why Jack thinks it is such a resounding victory when, between the 1997 election and the recent one, so many Blackpool people stayed at home.

Between Mrs Humble and Mr Marsden, in only four short years they managed to poll 14,663 votes less. It will surely not be a surprise to him to also learn that from an electorate of 149,000 no fewer than 67,000 did not vote at all. It does not take a mathematical genius to then work out that more people stayed at home than voted for the two Labour MPs.

Taking the two constituencies from the actual returns therefore means that Mrs Humble received 29% of the available votes and Mr Marsden 28.3%. Mr Croysdill can put all the spin on the results that he pleases but I hardly think that democracy has been served when more than two in three people did not vote for the winners!

Further consideration should also be made to the fact that it was easier to vote than ever before due to anyone being allowed a postal vote.

In my view, we have the most incompetent and heartless council in the country, so it will be very interesting to see how few people turn out for the council elections in 2003.

Dave Elliot, Waterloo Road, Blackpool.