IN his attempt to defend Gordon Brown's role as Prime Minister, Ashok Kumar (Echo, May 15) ignores his catalogue of misjudgements and mistakes.

These include doubling council tax, denying us the promised referendum on the EU treaty, selling gold reserves at a low point, deceiving us on the inflation rate, vastly increasing non-productive government employees, and constant stealth taxes which affect the lower-paid most severely.

Personal allowances were belatedly raised in the panic to rescue the abolition of the ten per cent tax rate fiasco, but in abolishing this rate Mr Brown had deliberately deserted the most needy in this bracket to court voters who are in better circumstances.

It is obvious this revenue has been inefficiently used and much of it wasted. Now we have to face the effects of the credit crunch, increased oil and food prices and we are already facing huge debts.

Mr Brown is not blameless for these rises as he has fuelled the economy with cheap credit, taken extra millions in VAT from fuel rises, and has encouraged cheap, unfair competition from imported food at the expense of our own farm production.

How is this man said to be of great integrity, honesty, and fit to lead?

John Heslop, Gainford, near Darlington.