SIR – I don’t doubt that Labour parliamentary candidate Joy Squires is very proud of using the lady who spent hours in A&E in the party’s county council election leaflets.

Of course, this kind of thing never happened during the last Labour Government, did it? Moreover, given the MidStaffordshire Hospital and other health scandals on Labour’s watch will she acknowledge that the headline “Labour health targets led to many deaths” would be fair comment?

Orwell would readily recognise Labour’s misuse of the English language – for example, the reduction in benefits subsidising spare rooms which we, the taxpayers, are paying described as a ‘tax’ – a true reversal of meaning.

But the doublespeak which really deserves a prize is the description of reducing the top rate of tax from 50 to 45 per cent as, “Writing a cheque to millionaires”.

Has she forgotten that during most of the time of the last Labour government the top tax rate was actually lower at 40 per cent?

Labour raised it near the end of that catastrophic government’s term. So presumably during most of it, Labour were “writing cheques to millionaires.”

Councillor Squires is also trying the old bankers bonus trick again, claiming that a tax on bonuses will bring in millions to spend on welfare benefits. Unfortunately, Labour also claim to be against these bonuses.

So then there will be no bonuses to tax. The voters are not so easily taken in.

FRANCIS LANKESTER

Worcester