Conservative spokesman David Gold complains about Labour "ideas and pet projects" (Letters, June 17).

Is he referring to things like Sure Start, which has benefited thousands of pre-school age children? Perhaps he means the programme of NHS hospital building or the New Deal, which has led to near full employment in our region?

Surely he can't be talking about low interest rates or the minimum wage and rights for part-time workers that have helped lift many thousands of people and children out of poverty?

He clearly has fond memories of the pet projects and bright ideas of the last Conservative government, like railway privatisation and the poll tax.

The rest of us do not share his nostalgia for three million on the dole, interest rates at over 15 per cent, soaring national debt, recession, Black Wednesday and the "cones hotline" which benefited nobody, least of all those on low incomes.

Yet all Michael Howard, himself a recycled leftover from John Major's cabinet, can offer us today is the same old menu of cuts, charges and privatisation, subsidising private schooling and healthcare for the few at the expense of the many.

-Warren Morgan, Brighton