ANEURIN Bevan must have had two dreams in the immediate post-war years.

One, gratefully, came true – and that was/is our coveted National Health Service, which, despite the insidious threats of privatisation, we must all protect at all costs (no pun intended).

The other was that this country needed a full 25 years of a Labour government to achieve full socialism. The poignancy of all this was in his speech at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool, exactly 70 years ago, on 21 May 1945.

Just when was the last time a political party governed for 25 years in office?

Just maybe, this last General Election was a foregone conclusion when in July 2010, it was the trade unions which decided that it was to be Ed Miliband, and not his brother David, to be the leader of the Labour Party.

A glaring vote loser was his insistence on not holding an “in-out” referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. David Cameron has promised a referendum in two years time – maybe sooner – but it is imperative that voters, when the time comes, must look at the mealy-mouthed, weasel words that could be used to convince us that we should remain in a EU superstate that today costs us nearly £60m a day.

JOHN MADEN (Ukip Oxford West & Abingdon)
Montagu Road
Botley, Oxford