ELIZA Matthews can claim she played her part in putting new Prime Minister Tony Blair in Number 10.

The staunch Labour suppoorter toured the Bickershaw area in a minibus calling through a loudspeaker for residents to back MP Lawrence Cunliffe. And she's NINETY years old!

Now a resident of the Croft Residential Home off Bickershaw Lane, Elisa is a former Chairman of Aspull UDC, former magistrate, Sunday School Superintendent, school governor and trades union activist in the textile industry where she worked for many years after leaving school at 13 to start work in her uncle's weaving shed in leigh.

A councillor for 15 years, Liza said: "I have no ambition to be an MP but I suppose I could have been the Labour Party equivalent of Maggie Thatcher!

"I have always been a Labour supporter, for 90 years in fact, since I was born and brought up in a very poor family in Ince and started voting Labour when I saw what the Tory policies did to my parents.

"I congratulate the Labour Party for sweeping into power in such a massive swing and I am only glad that I was able to get out and about on polling day to do my bit."

Carer Brian Smith at the residential home said: "Eliza is a great old lady and she is a real fighter. Nothing would have kept her from showing her support on Thursday."

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