ALL that is missing from the comments of the Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman is “not me guv’nor” regarding her claims that both she and Labour are mere bystanders regarding the local job situation (Echo, June 19).

Ms Goodman and her amiable, but not particularly capable predecessor, Derek Foster, have overseen a collapse of manufacturing across the constituency and are now hellbent on watching the town centre of Bishop Auckland slowly die.

It was the Works Foundation that stated that the wider Wear Valley was nationally the area worst hit with job losses in 2008 and 2009.

The level of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance across the North-East doubled on Labour’s watch.

Prior to that we had the almost total removal of manufacturing from Spennymoor.

Added to this, it was Labour’s shameless open-door immigration policy that squeezed the low-skilled and the young out of the jobs market.

Sadly, Labour’s policies will take a generation to put right and along the route there will be much pain.

How long will it take people to understand that nations can’t spend what they haven’t already earned?

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland.