ONE has to admire Mark Simpson's letter headed "The Tories will be back." There is something alluringly noble about fighting a lost cause.

Mr Simpson obviously can't comprehend the profound loathing the people have for his party. Has the Tory party forgotten that it created the conditions, in which millions lost their jobs, their homes, and saw their hopes and dreams go up in smoke, in the furnace of Thatcherism?

Does the Tory party believe that what the people of our nation experienced under Mrs Thatcher, and Mr Major, will soon be forgotten? Does the Tory party expect we forget the billions our former Tory government lost on the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, or the appalling sleaze of the Tory fat cats?

The behaviour of the last Tory government has consigned them to the political wilderness, to such an extent that they cannot even form a meaningful Her Majesty's Opposition. And there they will stay, until their contemptible treatment of the people of our nation has been expunged from the soul of the Tory Party.

That is the lesson of this election and of the previous election. Now that Mr Hague has fallen on his sword, we will undoubtedly witness yesterday's tired old political hacks and rejects, stampeding after the now vacant post of Party Leader.

I would advise them not to bother with the deadbeat old war horses of the past.

They need someone untainted by the Tories "grab as much much as you can, while you can" era. That may take a generation.

And therein lies a stark warning to New Labour, with its addiction to spin and control.

New Labour has been given their majority by a corrupt electoral system, and the core electorate's revulsion of the Tory Party.

If crime continues to despoil our estates, or if New Labour fails to deliver on health, education and decent provision for the old, they too will experience the wrath of the electorate, more than three quarters of which did not vote for our " unconstitutional" New Labour Government.

N TAYLOR,

Worcester.