When I read the article “3,400 unemployed in York (The Press, March 19), it prompted me to have a say on the issue.

On the national news it was said that unemployment was 2.25 million. However, Tessa Jowell said 250,000 came off Jobseekers Allowance in February. This would indicate 2.5 million unemployed last month.

If the public can remember back to the early 1980s, unemployment was three million-plus and the so-called Iron Lady altered the way numbers were totalled. Overnight, the numbers fell to two million. Since Margaret Thatcher seems to be the topic of late, she was the person who dug the hole that the miners and the coal industry were buried in. Since then, industry went into decline by being moved into Europe and in later years to the Far East.

Labour must take the blame for their contribution to this mess. Council tax has gone up more than 140 per cent for the police plus an extra 30 per cent for the fire and rescue fiasco.

But above all else, industry has been reduced to such an extent it is almost non-existent, yet thousands of foreign workers (cheap labour) are still working in this country. What has gone wrong?

P Richardson
York Road, Haxby, York.