I'M sure Jeff Henderson means well by spouting percentages and GDP figures and Treasury data (April 2) but I must correct him on certain facts.

In May 1979, the Tories inherited an inflation rate of nine per cent, not 27 per cent. Margaret Thatcher increased VAT from 8.5 per cent to 15 per cent straight away and took inflation to 23 per cent.

By creating four million unemployed she managed to get it back to single figures. As for high interest rates, I can remember a mortgage rate of at least 15 per cent in the early Eighties, also thanks to her policies.

For 18 years the Tories sold off public assets and cut public services. Are we now seriously supposed to believe that this self-proclaimed policy did not actually happen?

GR Goforth,

Church Street,

Amotherby,

Malton.