SYLVIA Noble (Letters, June 18) highlighted a fact that most people seem unaware of - whichever party we vote into office to run this country, they are unable to control our destiny when faced with the power of international finance.

Until someone comes along who is prepared to stand up to these people, we will continue to stagger from crisis to crisis.

In Westminster, there is a bunch of puppets dancing to someone else's tune. They spend their time trying to score cheap political points off each other while failing to address issues of importance.

None of them has the guts to come out and say they will put this country first, and fight against the financiers and currency speculators whose actions cause thousands of ordinary folk to be thrown on the dole.

Our parliament should be able to govern, but it cannot. What we have to do is replace the present bunch of toadies in it with men and women of vision and determination, with the will to extricate us from the grip of international financial control and put the interests of this country and its people first.

Anyone who undertook to do this would certainly get my vote.

ROGER WOOD, Fallbarn Crescent, Rawtenstall.

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