SIR – Reading the letters of Labour contributors is an experience of weirdness. It is as if we are in year zero and the last Labour government simply didn’t exist.

Parliamentary candidate for Worcester Joy Squires, ex-council leader David Barlow and all the rest have simply airbrushed it out of the public record, and it seems out of their own memory too.

So there is no trace of their support for Gordon Brown’s disastrous stewardship of our economy as chancellor and prime minister.

The Labour government kept interest rates artificially low.

The result was an out-ofcontrol credit boom. But we were able to spend, spend, spend on cheap Chinese goods which we paid for by borrowing money from, well, of course, the Chinese.

This was deliberate and allowed Brown to increase taxes and public spending.

The result is that we are one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world.

Our families are in debt, our companies are in debt and our Government is in debt.

Growth was a fantasy because it was based on borrowed money, not by earning our way in the world.

Living within our means is not austerity. And if we think it is, then heaven help us.

Too many politicians who should be telling us the truth still think that the world owes us a living.

So according to them, other countries must lend us as much money as we want at the lowest possible interest rate.

Unfortunately, in the real world they don’t have to. The Budget shows how little room for manoeuvre our country has.

FRANCIS LANKESTER
Worcester