Following my recent letters, Labour Party colleagues are asking if I am secretly working for the Tories. They ask if I want to see them back.

I answer my critics on just one issue. Half a century ago, my parents moved from the Rossington pit village to Crawley for a new start.

They were not given state benefits. They were given a council house and a job.

My brother passed his 11-plus, went to the grammar school and from there to medical school. His university grant was not a great deal but he survived. He now earns a salary my parents could only dream of.

The Government recovered the cost of his medical school fees by the income tax his high rate of salary generated.

Not all of my brother's friends were so lucky. Six out of ten were thrown on to the education scrap heap. The secondary schools turned them into factory fodder.

Being six years younger, my education took a different path. I finished my school days at a top comprehensive. No one was written off as useless or stupid by virtue of one exam taken at the age of 11. We were all encouraged to do our best to obtain qualifications.

At the age of 37, I found myself unemployed. I enrolled for a mature student degree course. Again the grant was not a great deal but it enabled me to do something constructive to better my position.

Neither my brother nor I could have gone to university under today's Labour Government.

Neither of us could have afforded to take the risk of leaving university with thousands of pounds of debt round our necks.

I could write similar letters on a number of other issues. To my Labour Party critics, I became a party activist because I despised Thatcher and everything she stood for. However, she had one quality lacking in today's Government.

At least with Thatcher you knew where you stood. If she said she was going to do something, she did it, even if we did hate her for it.

-Stuart Bower, Upper Beeding