Letter to The Times

I've written the following letter to The Times after reading the obnoxious article today by Mr Weak himself, former prime minister John Major, who attempts to throw vitriol on Labour's record over the past ten years.

Dear Sir

John Major accuses the Labour government of being “a waste of time” (The Times 2nd May).

Does John Major consider the minimum wage or two million more people in work to be a waste of time? Or the huge improvements in the NHS and education? Or the ban on foxhunting, which David Cameron wants to repeal as a priority of any new Tory government?

This shameless and arrogant piece is an insult to the millions of people who wasted their time on the dole under Major's disastrously weak and uncaring government. I recall his own Chancellor, Norman Lamont, saying the country's slump was “a price worth paying'” - a piece of spin strangely resonant in today's Tory party under his former spin doctor, David Cameron. Meanwhile, his trade secretary Michael Heseltine, who had promised “to intervene breakfast, dinner and tea to help British companies” busied himself before one breakfast in 1992 by making nearly thirty thousand miners redundant before lunchtime. Leaving aside the worst recession in British history, what achievement can Major really be identified with? The cones hotline?

Yours faithfully

Cllr Mark Bennett

Labour Councillor for Streatham South

Major's article is at: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1733740.ece