SIR – Credit where it’s due. Tory councillor Francis Lankester's approach to challenges based on fact is absolutely consistent, whatever the subject. He ignores them.

Most recently (Worcester News, May 25), he chooses to disregard the unfortunate fact that the economy’s structural deficit was lower, pre-crash under Labour, than in the final five years of the last Tory government.

He does seem incapable of seeing things in historical context. There was no Tory criticism of Labour spending on health and education (quite the contrary); and the the Tories argued for even less regulation of the financial sector than the bit that Labour imposed.

This vicious cuts programme is politically – not financially – driven, and by a party which actually believes in shrinking the size of the state, the support that it gives to the poor, sick and underprivileged, and the common good which binds us together in a fair society.

David Barlow
Worcester