F W Birch and several other correspondents have stated that Tory governments are always left to sort out the mess left behind by Labour (Letters, June 2).

Maybe it’s F W Birch who has been on another planet as he/she obviously hasn’t noticed the worldwide banking crisis that has badly affected so many countries.

The USA, Japan, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal all have higher GDP debt that the UK, whilst France and Germany has similar levels. Unemploy-ment in these countries is also higher than in the UK.

I fail to hear Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg criticising those Conservative-run countries (like Germany, France and Italy) for having exactly the same problems as the UK!

Should these Conservative-run countries have the same ‘change’ as in Britain?

F W Birch also fails to notice that whatever type of government is in power, be it left, right or centre, during a recession that government suffers at the polls.

Remember, if it had been left to the Tories, then their policy of letting Northern Rock and presumably other banks collapse would have led to hundreds of thousands of people losing life savings and thousands of businesses going to the wall.

Rather than sorting out the mess, I foresee the sight of a government run by multi-millonaires using mass unemployment as a tool to reduce debt.

DAVE SMITH, Woodbank Avenue, Darwen.