THE politicos have already started to use these columns as a vehicle for electioneering in advance of the forthcoming General Election. So let me make a point as an elderly member of the voting public.

The Liberal Democrats, if elected, intend to drop their original plans to help the older members of the population. We are told their spending plans will favour the young instead.

We hear nothing from other political parties about specific plans for the elderly, but it might be worth their noting that we older people are now a significant slice of the population and that we are more likely to turn out and vote than the young who cannot or will not.

Some while ago, both major parties, for instance, pledged linking the state retirement pension to a formula that relates it to retail prices, but they seem to have gone suspiciously quiet on such promises.

I do not intend to give my support to any party or politician who fails to include my generation’s needs in its plans.

Chris Greenwell, Darlington.

YOUR letter from Chris Wilkins (HAS, Jan 18) suggests that had there been more marginal parliamentary seats on Teesside the Government’s approach to the situation at Corus might have been different.

From time to time you publish letters from people who give the impression that they would like to see one-party government in the UK, usually by the Labour Party. The Corus position illustrates just what might happen if this were to be the case.

Government by one party invariably leads to corruption, incompetence and dictatorship, as in Zimbabwe. We might take note that the most powerful person in the present Government sits in the House of Lords and has not been elected.

We should, therefore, be thankful that in this country a system has evolved by which no political party holds office for more than three or four terms; thus Labour may win the 2010 election, but we can be reasonably certain that they will be out of office in 2014-15.

Peter Elliott, Eaglescliffe, near Stockton.

I READ with interest your letter from Councillor Alex Cunningham, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Stockton North (HAS, Jan 16), referring to scrutiny of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

I suggest he starts with his own party first and thinks about its failed policies.

As for his dig at David Cameron on marriage, let’s not forget it was Labour that abolished the married man’s allowance in 1997.

It was the Labour Party which also told lies about the economy at that time, which was in good shape under former Chancellor Ken Clarke.

As for the money to be spent on schools, hospitals, etc, let us first have a good look at the books to see how much mess Labour has left us in. We then can look at the other failed polices – law and order, immigration, destruction of private pensions, and to top it all the selling of the gold reserves.

Need I say any more?

John Gasston, Bishop Auckland Conservatives.

RE Des More’s letter (HAS, Jan 19). Any suggestion that the Major government contained any more than dithering bunglers is blinkered to say the least.

Any measures they took were aimed not towards improving the economy, but dictated purely by party dogma. Let’s not forget that their own supporters deserted them in droves.

D Lonsdale, Ripon, North Yorkshire.