BEFORE the last General Election, Labour sang 'Things can only get better' and made all sorts of claims that taxes would not go up if they were elected.
Things certainly got better for Labour politicians - especially the Lord Chancellor - but how have we poor taxpayers been getting on?
In the last year under the Tories, we paid 38 per cent of our national income as tax. Now it is up to 39.6 per cent.
That is not surprising to motorists paying extra petrol tax or to pensioners suffering from tax changes reducing the size of their pension funds.
Smokers, shareholders and married couples have all been hit, but what are we getting for our money?
Labour picked education and health as two key policy areas and they have already failed on both of them. Hospital waiting lists have shot up by 147,000 and are still rising.
It seems we are getting the worst of all worlds, with higher taxes and poorer services.
We should not be too surprised. That's what always happens under Labour. It's just the same in local government with above average council taxes and poorer services.
B GAVIN, Jessel Street, Blackburn.
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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