Margaret Thatcher

May I offer a few extra comments that Mr Riley omitted. For example: The butchery of the State Pension - I believe William Hague was then at the Treasury; The selling off of council housing, never replaced; The selling off of police houses, including section houses, resulting in fewer younger recruits; The selling off of essential services, gas, water, electricity, mainly snapped up by foreign concerns; Semi-privatisation of the prison service - remember the fiasco of Group Four and the escaping prisoners; Reduction of customs and immigration presence at ports and airports - I came back into the UK without seeing a uniformed officer at either Dover and Teesside; Up to 15 per cent inflation; Up to three million unemployed; An unnecessary war with 252 servicemen plus three civilians dead which, if the Falklands had been reinforced in time, could have been avoided.

Have you ever noticed how many Thatcherites there are in the ranks of the present Tory parliamentary party? There's quite a lot.

AM Newman, Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

THE Margaret Thatcher "quote" referenced by Paddy Burton (HAS, Sept 13) must be - along with Karl Marx's notorious comment on religion - the most misquoted saying in all of politics.

It was actually a response to constant requests for Government intervention.

The full quote is: "They are casting their problems at society.

And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours."

Hardly the motto for individualism and lawlessness that Mr Burton suggests: quite the opposite, in fact.

Chris White, Spennymoor.