""I can't say I'm sorry to see 'New Labour' ousted. They did precious little to improve the crippled mess they inherited.""

In spite of Thatcher's eventual descent into megalomania, the situation at the election of 1997 was that New Labour inherited inflation at or slightly below 3 pecent, interest rates around 5 or 6 percent, a solid gold reserve backing up the economy, and a treasury well stocked with money.

I suspect that Cameron and Clegg would give their right arms to have inherited that kind of "crippled mess", but of course "Gordon the Prudent" frittered the cash away on failed "initiatives", sold the gold at the rock bottom of the market, raided our pensions (all of us, Tory, Libdem and Labour) to the tune of 5 billion pounds sterling, and removed the ten pence tax bracket.

Had he not done all of these things, we would have ridden out the recession without effort, and more importantly without 163 billion pounds of government debt.

It beggars belief that there are still voters supporting New Labour.

I sincerely hope that the new leadership will take stock, and recall that their party was based in the socialist ideal, and take it back to where it truly belongs.

The Con Lib coalition is not what is wrong here. It isn't ideal, but, until there is a genuinely socialist alternative, it will have to do.

IMHO the last genuinely socialist labour party was led by Clement Attlee.

Wilson was a conniving crook, and Callaghan an ineffectual fool.

Kinnock, though his heart was in the right place, would have been controlled by the unions (Quote from the time:- "One day the unions will say "Neil?", and you will").

Smith was the great loss for all of us. Had he lived, we would not have had the Blair/Brown pseudo Tories, and Britain would have been ten times better off.

I was seriously contemplating voting labour until he died and Tony B Liar swaggered in, looking more like Harry Enfield's "Loadsamoney" than a serious politician.

But we have what we have, and instead of ranting about it, we would be better employed helping it to succeed.

I for one will be constantly letting my MP know my opinion, if the government doesn't fulfil its promises. It's only a pinprick, but I can be monstrously irritating when I choose.

Don T.