VETERAN NHS campaigner and activist Harry Leslie Smith visited Stroud on Monday April 13 in a bid to boost Labour parliamentary candidate David Drew's general election campaign.

The 92-year-old RAF veteran survived the Great Depression and the Second World War and is now an activist for the poor and for the preservation of social democracy.

He met with Mr Drew at the Stroud Labour office before talking to supporters at a stall in the Stroud High Street

The Yorkshire-born author then spoke to Labour supporters at the Imperial Hotel about the effects of austerity and the NHS.

A strident supporter of the health service, he is campaigning against what he calls an unfair economic system that is returning Britain to the 1930s.

Mr Smith said: "After the war, my generation pledged to create a new, more equal world, based on merit, not the class system.

“As I reach the end of my time, I find we are returning to the blackness of the '30s, with children being hungry and hopeless. The Tories have led us down the primrose path and the country has gone from bad to worse.

“Labour created the best public health service in the world after the Second World War, but over time the guard has been lowered. We must fight to oppose the privatisation of the service that has already begun to happen under this government.

“It is up to very man and woman who can vote to use it in this general election. I find it tragic that in this day and age people willing give up their democratic right to vote, we as citizens have the ultimate power to choose who governs this county. Now more than ever this is absolutely paramount

"The answer to Britain's problems won't be found under the Tories. Their policies will return the country to the dog-eat-dog situation of my childhood.

“Together we can build a better Britain, and it starts with electing David Drew and a Labour government."

Labour’s parliamentary hopeful David Drew said he was delighted to welcome Mr Smith to Stroud.

“He has lived through some dark times and is determined for the country not to slip back into the bad old days. He is an inspirational speaker and an inspiring man,” he said.

Mr Smith who writes for The Guardian, is the author of four books about Britain during the Great Depression, the Second World War, and post-war austerity.