IMAGINE living in a country in which millions lose their jobs and 1,000 small businesses go into liquidation each week.

Imagine inflation at ten per cent, interest rates reaching 15 per cent, negative equity and the national debt doubling.

Imagine a country with no statutory minimum wage allowing employers to pay as little as £2 per hour.

Imagine a Cabinet minister stating that unemployment is a price worth paying. A poll tax introduced causing street riots.

Imagine training places for doctors and nurses being cut and thousands of hospital beds being lost and the elderly being forced to pay for eye tests.

Imagine an electorate voting back into power a party which did all that - dream on Mr Lawson (Letters, October 12). Tory governments are a thing of the past.

N Jones,

Bootham Terrace,

York.

Updated: 09:51 Wednesday, October 20, 2004