IT clearly shows the stupidity of the last government that they allocated an additional £35 million to Blackburn for improvements - a town that has returned a Labour MP for over 50 years and with a massive Labour majority on the council, while Blackpool, which had two Tory MPs and had a Tory council for 100 years, never got a penny.

No wonder that it is now also under Labour control.

It is a fact that people living in public housing and dependent on state benefits vote Labour and this town has an abundance of both.

The North Sea oil revenues have been wasted, providing a better standard of living for the long term unemployed than for people in work. We have a system where a postman is delivering Giros to layabouts greater than his take home pay.

New five-bedroomed houses are being built to house large families rent free, the children are on every benefit available and the man in the house unemployed and probably unemployable.

J UTTLEY, Bolton Road, Blackburn.

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