SIR – The Labour leaflet that I’ve just received claims that only Labour can tackle the “cost of living crisis”. Perhaps that is because they created it in the first place: (a) by welcoming every inflationary increase in house prices, which of course led to increased rents and housing benefits, reducing disposable income for other expenditure, and (b) by not tackling inflationary and above-inflation rises in energy, water, rail and other transport – all essential areas of spending for many, including the very poorest.

I could add the privatisation of schools and hospitals – or at least the many new buildings paid for by more expensive private finance. I will add (New) Labour’s embracing of the worst aspects of capitalism and lax regulation which ensured that we were all caught up in the “global” (or rather Anglo-Saxon), financial crisis Personally, I wouldn’t buy a used car, (indeed anything!) from the Labour party, and despite some schooling from the Lib-Dems, the Tories are not to be trusted either.

Whose idea was it to create the privatised rip-offs and see them all snapped up by foreign privateers?

John Hall, Pennithorne Avenue, Baildon