I WOULD like to add my two penn’orth to the correspondence about UKIP.

My first vote was in 1945 when I was living in a tent in Gaza with the Paras. We had lived in Africa, Italy, France, Greece and Palestine and saw how other people lived.

I talked over the issues with my troop of 30 men and all wanted a fairer society, Harold Wilson’s Labour government was elected.

It started the National Health Service, built hundreds of thousands of council houses, nationalised the coal, power and railway industries, but continued food rationing for far too long and was eventually brought down by greedy trade union leaders.

The Edward Heath government took us into a European Common Market, not the monster that the EU has become. Mrs Thatcher’s government privatised the power companies, telephone and water supplies which are now largely foreign owned. I did not expect to be overcharged for my electricity by a German company.

John Major made a pig’s ear of privatising the railways. The current lot put up the price of postage stamps and then sold off Royal Mail at a knock-down price to their hedge fund supporters who proceeded to make a killing, aided and abetted by Vince Cable, whose Lib-Dem party I consider irrelevant.

I am a socialist by birth and instinct, but who in their right mind would vote Labour if Ed Balls had anything to do with the finances?

The Blair/Brown governments invaded Iraq on a tissue of lies and left that country in ruins; their financial incompetence and failure to monitor the banks left our country in ruins also. UKIP is a protest vote? So what? We are protesting against the established parties and the EU.

G A W Heppell, Riseborough House, Rawcliffe Lane, York.