SIR – I was interested to see that Mrs McCallum (Letters, April 17) should believe that Mrs Thatcher’s heritage was one of prudence and that people like countries that live within their means.

If we leave aside her Falkland Islands’ heritage; nearly £2 billion since 1982 for just over 2,000 UK citizens, a third of whom were not born in the islands – or put another way £20,000pa per head of population – we should perhaps look at the way in which she dealt with public resources.

I can only compare her handling of public finances to the owner of a stately home who decides that rather than reduce living standards, they will sell off the family silver. Whether the state should have continued to own such a variety of utilities is a matter for debate.

What is more obvious is that the sale of assets built up over the years was not used to rebuild infrastructure but merely to keep taxes down.

Thus we were encouraged as a nation to believe that we could afford Scandinavian-style levels of social support while paying US-style levels of taxes; something that successive governments have never recovered from.

David Jennings, Belmont Rise, Baildon