IT was disappointing, although not surprising, to see so many correspondents (HAS, April 27) cling hopelessly to yet another untruth about the Conservatives.

David Cameron has made clear that the North-East has nothing to fear from the Conservatives, as he has also dispelled the blatant lies on Labour campaign leaflets, including those in Gordon “I did not authorise them” Brown’s constituency, warning of cuts to pensions, fuel allowances, eye tests, TV licences and bus passes.

Do these same correspondents believe Labour has served the best interests of the North-East since 1997? Let’s look at the facts.

Unemployment in the North-East is 9.5 per cent of the workforce and 94,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost here between June 1997 and November 2009.

Nationally, 1.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 1997 with that industry declining by more than 9.3 per cent of GDP between 1997 and 2009, which is the biggest decline under any other government on record, including Margaret Thatcher’s.

Since the facts speak volumes and the lies cry desperation, is it any wonder that Labour is now pinning its hopes on sewing up a seedy, backroom coalition deal with that arrogant opportunist, Nick Clegg, just to exist in the next parliament?

Des More, Darlington.

PUBLIC expenditure in the North-East is now 64 per cent of GDP and, as David Cameron said in his interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, clearly unsustainable.

This is merely masking deeper, entrenched problems. The North-East has the highest proportion of workless households of any UK region; there is a smaller proportion of highly qualified people in the region than nationally; and there are more concentrations of deprivation here than in any other English region.

However, Mr Cameron has no agenda (or mechanism) to cut locally, and during his recent visit to Stockton clearly said he wished to decrease the ratio by growing the local economy, and that stopping the job tax is the first step towards doing that.

He pointed towards the private sector – a new generation of manufacturing in the North-East with carbon capture storage. It was coals from Newcastle that powered the industrial development of the world – railways, electric lighting, the steam turbine and the modern fuel cell. The North-East could now lead the development of a next generation of low-carbon technologies, another energy revolution.

Don’t let scaremongering allow you to be taken for granted by the same old Labour Party. It’s time to vote for change.

Thomas Byrne, Sacriston, Durham