DOES Michael H Read (Letters, October 14) not recall that it was only five years since British Aerospace was completely privatised and that its repeated profitability is purely on the back of the taxpayers' willingness to pay for the warplanes it makes?

What relevance have the Tornadoes used in the Gulf War to the 12,000 people no longer employed in the aircraft industry?

Compare those 12,000 jobs to the 500,000 jobs lost in the construction industry over the same period.

Germany, one partner in the Eurofighter project, is wobbling and if they pull out the other two continental partners will no doubt withdraw and the project will collapse.

If this happens, 14,000 UK jobs will go. That may be a price worth paying if the government of the day was to divert the money required for 230 Eurofighters into the construction industry.

It could create hundreds of thousands of jobs in building schools, hospitals, houses or whatever and all more beneficial to everyone.

This plane passed its sell-by date when the Berlin Wall collapsed. Britain does not require such a sophisticated weapon in this day and age.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.

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