As we witness house repossessions at their highest for years, the number of mortgages being granted also falling, the cost of fuel rising faster than anyone can remember and inflation at its highest for well over a decade, what is our Halifax MP doing?

As we move into the effects of this credit crunch (the best spin phrase for recession ever!) and the words of Gordo, "no more boom and bust" ringing in our ears, what is Linda Riordan doing during the longest holiday of all in this country?

While the Government now borrows and plunges our national debt ever deeper and still imposes its punitive taxes upon us, while it hits those who benefited from the 10 per cent tax bracket they removed, just what is the MP up to? While we await the news of redundancies (99 per cent in the private sector you can bet on) and the banks record plummeting profits, what is our Linda getting involved in?

Well, if letters to Your say are true, she is touting for signatures to a petition requesting no state funeral for Margaret Thatcher! How typically Left-wing, vile, repugnant and grubby of her. This is not gutter politics. This is the politics of the sewer.

I would never sign a petition against a state funeral for any former PM because I feel anyone who has served in that position should have a state funeral, whatever their politics.

This is, of course, an MP and politician who seems to think that by criticising opponents she will deflect attention from her incompetence.
Where is her voice of concern regarding the possible movement of certain health services from Calderdale to Huddersfield? Why is she putting out statements blaming the council (which is not Conservative controlled as per her leaflets) for the loss of bus passes to favoured schools in Calderdale when a qualifying school over a council boundary is within three miles? It is the 2006 Education Act as passed by her Labour Govern-ment which is to blame for that!

Then again, she is a member of the Government which did nothing but squander the income when the economy was sound and is now borrowing for today, leaving the bill for us when they are long gone.

It is a Government which was going to end sleaze but has shown us how it works in the big league. It is a Government which was going to adopt an ethical foreign policy but abandoned it when trade got in the way. Halifax needs a mature and responsible MP, not a petty and nasty one like it currently has.

(Coun) Roger Taylor
(Con, Northowram and Shelf)