WILL the Labour Party never learn? Twenty years ago, under their control, inflation rose to 26 per cent and eventually they had to go cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund to be bailed out, but their proposals for raising taxes, should they actually win next time, are beyond belief.

Not content with the Teenage Tax - abolishing Child Benefit for 16 to 18s who stay on at school - they want to set up a tax-raising Scottish Parliament, which would raise income tax over the border.

Adding to this madness by recreating the Greater London Council, with its 'spending and tax-raising powers,' they also plan to drop Council spending caps, so that Labour Councils could push spending, and thus council taxes even higher.

They bleat about more money for the NHS, and yet would remove relief on private medical insurance, currently available to those aged 60 and over.

I am not at all surprised that Labour want to make education a top issue, because if their taxation proposals are anything to go by, some of their Party must be thinking that two plus two equals five!

G C BROADHURST, Sharples Street, Accrington.

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