SOME 26 per cent of the national vote is not exactly a ringing endorsement for New Labour.

Neither is a reduced percentage of votes in safe seats compared with 1997, while in many cases, the percentage of votes to the Lib-Dems increased.

Neither is one of the lowest turnouts since the First World War a resounding endorsement. Wasn't it more the case that the Conservatives failed to receive support?

Along with many others, I had thought that the "instruction" to invest in public services had been given in 1997.

The matter of where financial policy decisions for sovereign nations are to be taken, and by whom, is intricately connected with the convergence criteria that we agreed to have imposed on us in preparing to get the time right for entry into the euro when Margaret Thatcher was in power. It all sounds morally creditable to suggest that public spending levels needed to be controlled because the first priority was to put the economy on a sound footing.

New Labour kept to Conservative public investment plans because of the obligations agreed to in the convergence criteria.

There were public protests and strikes about the adverse effects of reduced investment in public services in Germany and France that many have now forgotten about.

The funding of public services in all EU states will be as subject to decision-making in Brussels as taxation, interest rates, support for industry and whatever else. This isn't a question of timing, it's one of who takes the policy decisions.

Mr Blair will need to sharpen up his abilities in presenting a properly analysed and watertight case.

WENDY HANDS,

Upton-upon-Severn