Reality of rose-coloured Labour visions

Former Labour government minister Brian Wilson's rose-coloured vision of his party's "achievements" while in power (Opinion, 13 May) causes the word "blinkered" to spring to mind. His new schools and new hospitals bought on the never-never will haunt every government for generations.

His idolatrous nod to Tony and Gordon's stewardship of the economy fails to acknowledge that his party has presided over the largest debt crisis in generations, more people are out of work than ever and more are on government handouts than the country can afford.

He fails to remind everyone that Brown's legacy of the annual 5 billion raid on the pension funds will condemn many people to pensioner poverty and forgets the sale of the century of our gold reserves when it was as "cheap as chips". Brown spent the whole lot then went on a borrowing spree like an alcoholic looking for an answer at the bottom of a tumbler, throwing our cash at anything which brought him and his party a good headline. The problem with Labour people is their belief that they know better than me how to spend my money and are forever scheming to steal more of it from me. Wilson speaks of crystal balls; the term "glassy eyed" would be more appropriate.

STAN HOGARTH

Young Street

Strathaven

Anyone who truly believes that former prime minister, Gordon Brown MP, will be spending the rest of his life as a back-bencher working for the good of his constituents (your report, 14 May) would probably also believe that his predecessor Tony Blair is preparing to spend the rest of his life working in the voluntary sector among the poor in Rwanda.

TOM MINOGUE

Victoria Terrace

Dunfermline