THE lights went out in the early 1970s because of the miners’ strike under the leadership of the known union moderate, Joe Gormley. The Government at the time was Tory, led by Ted Heath.

The Labour Party in opposition was led by the moderate Harold Wilson.

Mark Anderson’s letter (HAS, May 12) was at best misleading or, perhaps more likely, downright mischievous. If he wants to assert that the Labour Party manifesto is driven by extreme or hard left ideology then he should provide an accurate analysis of that manifesto, showing how it is indeed extreme and/or hard left.

The attempt to compare the present Labour manifesto to an erroneous assessment of the causes of the power cuts in the early 1970s leads me to believe that Mr Anderson should venture out and retrieve his rattle rather than invest in a more intellectually challenging form of entertainment.

Peter Hanafin, Middleton St George