I FIND it hard to believe that MP Jack Straw was unaware of the trade being lost with the banning of A-boards and outside displays (LET, November 28). Doesn't he read the local press?

Perhaps, like Blackburn councillors, he's got too high and mighty, forgetting who put him there in the first place.

Tommy Ball was hounded by the same head-in-the-sand morons. He brought people to shop in the town by the bus-load, but they soon got diverted to Haslingden, where they were made welcome.

The only thing we've had from voting Labour has been a rise in the mortgage rate (a tax rise by the back door).

For my Council tax (£686 next year) I get a plastic bag taken away, which puts me one up on a new resident on Saunders Road, who hasn't yet learnt to carry his bag up to the top of the back street or it gets left.

Traders Phil Rostron and Mike Crane are wasting their time as are the 6,000 who signed their petition against the A-board ban.

The only petition that Jack Straw - or the Labour councillors will take any notice of is the one on polling day.

S SPENCE, Ribblesdale Place, Blackburn.

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