NO one can forget the speech by Tony Blair, when he said the three priorities for a New Labour government would be "education, education, education."

It seems that Richard Littlejohn, writing in a national newspaper, hit the nail on the head when he said what Mr Blair actually meant was Euan's education, Nicky's education and Kathryn's education.

The fact of the matter is that Labour are spending less on education than the last government - £12 billion less to be exact.

An independent survey shows that between 1992/93 and 1996/97, the last government spent five per cent of GDP on education, yet Labour's average spending will be only 4.7 per cent between 1997/98 and 2001/02.

Labour needs to spend £222.6 billion to return spending on education to the level they inherited, let alone increase it. Yet, they plan to spend only £209.8 billion, which leaves a shortfall of £12.8 billion.

This is just another example of the Great Labour Lie - saying one thing while doing another.

To add insult to injury, evidence shows that even the money they are spending is not getting through to schools, which are suffering budget cuts and difficulties. Labour are clearly not delivering the promises they made at the last general election.

JOHN FARRER, Mallard Place, Oswaldtwistle.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.