SIR – Mike Pollard (Letters, January 28) makes some interesting points about increases in spending on public services under the 1997-2010 Labour Government. Labour came into power in 1997, after 18 years of Conservative governments. For the first two years they stuck to their election promise to abide by the previous government’s spending plans; so from 1999 onwards they had to increase spending because local government had been deliberately emasculated and starved of money for 18 years.

Until the crash, the Labour Government was seen as being reasonably fiscally prudent, considering the amount that needed to be spent on hospitals, schools and the like. As for reliance on tax raised from the banking sector, I agree that they did not see the crash coming, but then, not many people did. Manufacturing had been undermined by a deliberate emphasis being placed on the City of London, so where else was Gordon Brown going to get the money from without raising headline taxes?

Ian Parsons, Alexandra Road, Eccleshill