I REFER to the responses to my letter from Eric Hyland and Cllr Sue Haworth criticising Labour and its supporters.

Mr Hyland complains about The Bolton News printing unsubstantiated and false claims and then goes on to do the same thing by saying that the Tories have borrowed more in seven years than all the Labour Governments put together. Where are his facts and figures to support that figment of his imagination. I will be as old as he is, possibly older, and have lived through all the Labour Governments since the 1960s. It is Mr Hyland who does not understand how the system works.

Nobody has said that public is bad and private is good but the fact is that public services, by virtue of the fact that they are a service, do not produce anything to sell and add to the wealth and economy of the country. They were sold off because they became too expensive to maintain. We all know that there was a global economic crash but most sensible people, governments and councils put money by, however little, "for a rainy day" but the Labour government spent all the reserves so there was nothing left to cushion the blow when the recession came.

As far as Cllr Haworth's letter is concerned, the heading to my letter "signs are a waste" was chosen by the paper. The main point was criticism of the Labour Party and its supporters in favour of the relatively minor point about how the Labour Council wastes money which could be used for social care. There may be a need for the speed limits near schools but that does not mean that they should waste money on every road unless they are doing it for political purposes.

We all want what Cllr Haworth wants but the only sources of income Labour has is to raise taxation which will affect us all and which Labour supporters will not want to pay, financial support from the unions who will disrupt our lives and achieve very little, and borrowing more money to increase the national debt.

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