OH dear, I seem to have touched a raw nerve by suggesting that Labour politicians are socialists.

To put the record straight for Mr Siret: I was brought up in a working class family of seven in a small council house in north Oxford. By the standards of today I would probably have been brought up in poverty!

I worked in a large organisation that has been both a private business and nationalised and after early retirement have a part-time tax paying job. My wife of 37 years has, for her full working life, delivered front line healthcare in the NHS. We are definitely working class.

Mr Siret suggests that the only socialist Government was during the 1940s. While many would agree with some of the aims and achievements of that Government, they were voted out of office after one term in a landslide for the alternative.

I suppose Mr Siret believes the millions of British people that voted them out were all rich Tories.

Strangely though, I believe that Mr Siret and I may have similar views on how a civilised society provides for its citizens – welfare provision for those genuinely in need and the NHS spring to mind.

Our paths undoubtedly part when it comes to how that is politically delivered. From my working life experiences, and watching events in the wider world, I believe in a political system that supports creative free enterprise that delivers wealth and job creation together with freedom of choice and expression, which, with good governance and non-punitive taxation, can provide the public services we all expect.

My letters have only ever tried to put a different perspective on some of the questionable facts stated in letters to this paper, rather than the continual diatribes from Mr Siret criticising just about everyone on every issue. Yes, I agree there are individuals in all walks of life who abuse the positions they hold, and that they should be held to account, eg voting a party out of Government. That is called democracy.

IAN CUMMINGS, Gibson Close, Abingdon