David Gold's letter (March 19) is the usual rather overheated blend of Tory soundbites, spin and personal attacks instead of a debate about the facts.

If our "nanny state" keeps us a little safer from speeding motorists, I'm all for it.

If "our Chancellor's out-of-control spending habit" means things like an annual £18 billion increase in government cash for schools by 2008 and £100 extra for pensioners as announced in last week's Budget, great.

Why does he have a problem with that? Our taxes are still lower than in France, Germany and Spain.

Mr Gold wants a future Tory government to cut his taxes so we have to pay more in school fees and private medical bills. He seems to forget that the last Conservative government ran more of a "negligent nanny state", actually raising taxes 44 times in five years but doing nothing for us except run down our schools and the NHS and privatise our railways.

I don't remember the last Tory government actually cutting Whitehall bureaucracy like Gordon Brown did last week either.

-Gavin Kennedy, Hove