SO the election is now on and all the parties are promising what they will do when elected.

However, the two most serious policies to be discussed at this election are the survival of the health service and the economy; all parties are being economical with the truth on these topics.

Every party is promising to throw money at the NHS but quite simply if it’s good enough to legislate that 0.7% of GDP must be spent on overseas aid, why can’t we do the same for health? We spend roughly 8% of our GDP on health whereas most Western countries spend up to 12% of their GDP. Why can’t a political party say we will legislate to spend 10% of GDP over the life of this Parliament increasing to 12% so the health service can plan properly and make the NHS independent of political intervention.

Do we really want the best health service in the world or do we want to lurch from crisis to crisis?

The Conservative/Lib Dems say they’ve turned the economy around and we should continue to support them. The economy is now growing at over 2% but this government has printed more money than you can shake a stick at. It would be absolutely insane if they had printed all that money and the economy didn’t grow but it’s not real growth.

Each party is saying it will bring down the government’s debt. Austerity has to be the price so the poor must suffer but not the rich. Nobody should be against people making money but with money goes responsibilities and that means paying a higher tax rate for it.

How many companies in this country do not pay their fair share of tax or take government contracts, paid for by the hard-working people of this country, and then take that money abroad and pay little or no tax on it.

The Lib Dems are proud to say that they made the Conservative government increase tax allowances but to do so welfare benefits had to be cut to help to balance the books. Then VAT was increased hitting the poorest disproportionately so the LibDems boast about saving tax but put the biggest burden onto the poorest in the land.

If you want to cut government spending to balance the books stop HS2 and forget about Trident. It would save in excess of £160 billion. What this country really needs is a bigger army. At the moment we do not have an army we have a defence force. We must get the strength of our Armed Forces back to over a 100,000 frontline troops.

Ian Greenhalgh

Bolton