I REMEMBER the days when floor covering was lino, and carpets, radios, record players, cars, vacuum cleaners, TVs, holidays, meals out, and cinemas and theatres were hardly affordable luxuries.

The cost of night clubs would have been unthinkable.

What will satisfy the average citizen?

Yes, things had to change but near-poverty made you use your money wisely. Food and child care were priorities. You were grateful for employment and did not price yourself out of it.

I am, politically, a neutral thinker because I have admired the efforts of lone MPs of different views down the years.

One of the wisest statements made was "one man's wage increase is another man's price increase". So, brass tacks time.

Pre-elections always feature promises from opposition parties which can, in theory, not be fulfilled without the finance which only magicians can produce.

Long life tells you that although you would not change many things you would approach them in a different way.

Improvement is no different.

Better the devil you know than the one you know did not keep their promises.

Put in the same government and give them the chance to govern based on their mistakes and the means they alone know are at their disposal. Don't accept more promises and waste more years reaching a deadlock. No more opinion polls please - false information makes people think it is a formality - and they don't vote!

Gordon Ross,

Huntington Road, York.

Updated: 09:29 Friday, April 22, 2005