ALAN Milburn (HAS, June 25) harks back to the Blair era, not surprisingly perhaps since he was one of its main players as well as one of its main beneficiaries.

For the rest, or most, of us, Blair’s premiership was an unmitigated disaster. Apart from involving us in two ruinous, illegal and unwinnable wars, Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown completely misjudged and mismanaged the economy.

True, there was a kind of mini-boom at that time but it was an ephemeral, completely unsustainable and essentially illusory one. In fact it contributed largely to the collapse that predictably followed.

The fact that Blair’s government was not the only European one to behave in this irresponsible way does not exonerate him.

As for “Mr Blair being one of Britain’s great leaders”, he was actually a not so secret admirer of Margaret Thatcher and seems to have modelled his style of leadership on hers – a recipe for ultimate disaster and betrayal (of the working class) if ever there was one.

Tony Kelly, Crook.