ACCORDING to a recent correspondent, Labour's eight years in office is comparable to Stalin's Soviet rule.

By this person's reckoning then the Tory party's 18-year rule could well be akin to Adolf Hitler's Nazi party rule. It's all nonsense, of course - the party in power does what it wants.

For example, the Tories in two years increased unemployment from less than one million to more than three million. They put up VAT from 8 per cent to 15 per cent and then 17 per cent in order to fund tax relief for the rich.

Mrs Thatcher cut the link between pensions and earnings costing pensioners up to £30 per week. When the link was with inflation they even changed the month on which comparisons were made to the disadvantage of pensioners.

Another nasty little trick of theirs was to sack people and offer them their jobs back at a lower rate of pay. They then privatised the cleaning of hospitals and public buildings where profit came before cleanliness and now we have MRSA. Mrs Thatcher halved the number of meat inspectors and so we got mad cow disease.

They privatised the railways so we now have 100 private companies instead of one and an unholy mess for travellers, again with profit put before safety.

And so to the economy, where their incompetence lost us half of our reserves and we had interest rates of 15 per cent.

Perhaps your correspndent will now think twice before making odious comparisons. Life under Labour may not be perfect but it is a darn sight better than under the party of the rich.

A DAVIES,

Worcester.