MADAM – Is Mr Gabbett (SNJ October 29) saying that Labour caused Lehman’s fall, that Labour was involved in sub-prime mortgages and that, for example, Greece’s descent into bankruptcy was the Labour Party’s fault?

Allow me to remind him that the financial crash in 2008 was a world crash, occasioned by the massive slackness of American banks in lending money to people who couldn’t afford to pay back the loans, with the subsequent collapse of large sectors of the American financial sector, and then the banks and financial institutions around the world. As we all know, when the USA sneezes, we all catch cold – though perhaps Mr Gabbett finds it more convenient to pin all that on Labour. Banks in our country were simply part of the collapse.

Of course Labour should not have relaxed regulations in the financial sector during the time of the last administration, but I wonder if Mr Gabbett can recall that the then shadow chancellor attacked Labour for not de-regulating enough?

The shadow chancellor at the time was, of course, one George Osborne.

His amnesia continues when he conveniently forgets that the economy was slowly growing in the three years before 2010, as Alistair Darling began to bring the country out of a mess that the party did not create, but that the Conservatives then blamed them for.

Does Mr Gabbett suggest that we were in the same grave situation in which Greece found itself, which Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron constantly – wrongly and cynically – said was the case? That was manifestly an untruth and I am sure they knew that.

The Conservatives did not “bring Britain back from the brink” at all because the country was not on the edge of a cliff.

I also do not understand Mr Gabbett saying that Labour failed “to fix the roof when the sun was shining”.

Does he not regard the spending of millions on improving the hospitals that were in a very run-down situation, and the schools that were in an even worse state of repair, as “fixing the roof”?

As a teacher in the early 1990s, I remember us having to use buckets to catch the leaks in our classrooms, a situation that was a part of our daily life, and my school was in no way one of the worst.

In 1993, the county council had to ask schools to get rid of teachers because the Conservative government at the time did not have enough money to fund salaries.

I do not think any government is foolproof, but it was dishonourable to behave like Mr Cameron, Mr Osborne and later Mr Clegg did in 2010 as they repeatedly laid the blame for “the mess we are in” at Labour’s door.

I suggest that Mr Gabbett takes off his blinkers and looks at the facts more closely.

Brian Oosthuysen

Stroud