IN one of Steve halden’s recent letters he said it is no good public sector workers striking for more pay – there is no more money.

At the time of the floods earlier in the year when the effluent hit the affluent in the towns along the Thames Valley the Prime Minister told residents they would be compensated, money was no object, Britain was a very wealthy country.

Who is right, Steve? You then said the Labour government presided over a catastrophic industrial decline in Britain. Rubbish! If you look at the origins of GDP for the years before 2008, industry was 27.3 per cent, of which manufacturing was 16.6 per cent. The figures for 2014 are 22 per cent and 11 per cent. The catastrophic decline is now.

In 2007 Labour had growth of 3.4 per cent and in the first quarter of 2008 1.3 per cent. In the 2008-9 budget at the height of the recession the interest on debt was £24bn; in the budget in March of this year the debt interest for 2014-15 is £53bn, over £1bn a week.

From December 1, 2008 until January 1, 2010 Labour cut VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent, equal to a tax cut of £14bn, and it brought in a car scrappage scheme offering car owners £2,000 to buy another car to help the car industry.

On January 1, 2011, the Coalition raised VAT to 20 per cent putting another £13.4bn on our tax bill when the country was flatlining and going into double dip recession.

Reading my paper this morning before writing this letter I see that borrowing between April and June was £36.1bn, 7.3 per cent more than the same period last year.

Recovery? Stop pulling our legs, it’s no laughing matter, nor is the myth that the Tories are better with the economy.

MJ Warner, Groundwell Road, Swindon