HEARING Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown praising a past Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, brought back memories of comments another Tory, Michael Heseltine, made when New Labour came to power under the leadership of Tony Blair.

Mr Heseltine said New Labour had "stolen our clothes", meaning that they were more conservative on their new policies than the Conservative Party.

He was correct because, as the comments from Mr Brown prove, we now have a form of political crossdressing.

No wonder the electorate is confused and disillusioned with politics.

Long gone are the days when the political dividing lines were clearly defined, when the Labour Party represented the working class with trade union support and the Conservatives represented capitalism with support from business.

Anyone who thinks that the Labour Party still represents the working class must be extremely politically naive or living in a time capsule and the true blue Conservatives are beginning to turn green as both parties fight for the middle ground.

We can only hope that before the next General Election all the main parties formulate policies which can be clearly identified by the electorate as being different from each other.

Keith Dewison, Billingham.