I see that the election campaign has started already in Bury but I truly despair at the language and cynical scaremongering approach of Messrs Chaytor, Connolly and Smith (Letters, September 24).

Unfortunately, as June 2010 approaches, I’m sure such words will spill out unremittingly as Spinmaster in Chief Lord Mandelson calls the shots with local activists and tries every last tactic of the New Labour election machine to frighten the public.

But don’t you ask yourself why?

Is it that the truth hurts because, as David Cameron has conceded on several occasions in the past, Labour’s policies have, on many occasions, been well intentioned.

Yet the evidence shows they have been poorly thought- through and extremely wasteful, mostly because of deep-rooted party ideology designed just to socially engineer election victories.

Tragically, though, we now have a potentially fatal mix of consequences for us as a nation — a Government that sees short term political gain as its only driving force together with a recession, leaving us as the most vulnerable economy in Europe, as we carry on borrowing money at the rate of £6,000 every second! So how does this play with local “frightened” residents of Bury and other towns?

Don’t you feel anger, like me, watching Gordon Brown swanning around the world sucking up to any world leader who will massage his ego. Meanwhile crime, or the fear of it, in Bury and other towns soars, children have drifted into poverty since before 1997 and four in 10 children leave primary school without being able to read, write or add up properly. I could go on.

But soon there will be the prospect of radical change from a Government that hasn’t been possible for a generation.

Let me give you one example that Messrs Connolly and Smith may debate.

Sure Start has been well intentioned and my grand children and their parents have benefited from the financial support. Yet it could be so much better.

The Conservatives want to give schools more financial freedom and many would dearly love to have their own school-based nurseries.

Children would get more structured learning with better, consistently-funded resources across all communities and, most importantly, continuity of teaching from toddler stage to the age of 11.

What we have now with Sure Start is a lot of funding going to the most socially deprived areas, topped up by voluntary help, but with hard pressed nursery staff having to find ways to justify more hourly sessions for children to get extra staff funding.

Cynics might say that this kind of so called Labour flagship policy has the most political impact for the Government.

I prefer to look for change that puts doing the right thing for the whole community as its driving force.

That is liberal Conservatism — the kind that one Robert Peel championed, against all the odds!

Derek Brooks Tottington