CLIVE Blackmore started his letter with a mistaken assertion; “the Tories are the party of low taxation”.

Philosophically that may be so but a glance at the comparative Labour and Tory statistics since Margaret Thatcher’s first government tells a different story, especially in relation to indirect taxes such as VAT.

It was Thatcher who raised the rate of VAT from eight per cent to 15 per cent only weeks after denying there were any plans to do so in 1979.

And it was George Osborne who raised it from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent following the 2010 campaign.

But the real revelation, and not one that you’ll read about in the Tory press, is that far from, as Thatcher put it, “Labour spending until it runs out of other people’s money”, it’s been the Tories who have been the biggest taxers and spenders.

Between 1979-1997 during the Thatcher and Major years the average annual government spend was 43.5 per cent of GDP and since 2010 it’s averaged 43.1 per cent.

During the 13 years of the last Labour governments under Blair and Brown it averaged 39.5 per cent.

Paul Lock

North Woodchester