Labour radically improved the lives of the majority of people

ALAN Carcas (Yorkshire Post, October 1) asks rhetorically: “Will somebody please remind me – when did Labour ever get it right?”.

I am pleased to straighten Mr Carcas out on this very point, especially as he mentions the Clement Attlee government.

In 1945, Labour inherited a vast debt and industry shattered by pre-war neglect and six years of war. Nevertheless transport and mining were modernised and innovative new industries were established, most especially in aviation and nuclear power. Hundreds of thousands of new homes were built.

Educational opportunities based on ability (and not solely upon wealth and privilege) for the first time enabled working-class youngsters to access higher education and the professions.

There was full employment. Above all Labour, in the face of dogmatic Tory opposition, created the welfare state and the National Health Service.

Not only did Labour “get it right” but in so doing created the greatest reforming ministry of the 20th century.

Labour radically improved the lives of the vast majority of the British people – especially those who had been betrayed in the inter-war years by successive Tory governments.

From: J W Smith, Sutton-on-Sea.

ALAN Carcas writes that he has lived through every minute of Labour government since 1945, invites correspondents to remind him of when they ever got it right and thinks apologies are a cop out.

Does this mean that throughout Conservative years he left to live in some nice comfortable tax haven, or did he simply close his blue eyes?

One thing is for certain, he has never heard a Tory apologise for anything.

I have lived through every government since 1945 and have never said one side is right and the other side is wrong, but may I suggest a few of the mistakes that were made:

The dash for oil in the late 1950s and ‘60s which left us hostage to huge energy price rises when overnight the price quadrupled; not allowing local councils to reinvest the money raised from council house sales; slashing the Navy budget which led to the Falklands War following removal of the South Atlantic fleet – a war which when compared with the actual hours of conflict cost relatively more in terms of casualties and finance than Afghanistan and Iraq together; grossly under funding the NHS; railways, police and schools; destroying much of community life and putting 3.5 million on the dole – leaving in 1997 many people working for less than one pound per hour; demutualising the building societies.

A few of the things Labour got right, following the invitation from Mr Carcas: Creating the NHS; nationalising steel, power and railways for the benefit of the nation; building and refurbishing hospitals and schools (oh! those outside toilets); recruiting thousands of nurses, doctors, teachers and police; restoring bus services to rural areas denuded of such by the mid 1980s deregulation; rescuing the railways from a state close to oblivion following privatisation; apologising for things they got wrong.