THE Labour Party will lose the next General Election and deserves to. For 12 years it has promoted war, feathered the nests of the rich and greedy and at the same time its MPs have feathered their own nests with expenses and second jobs.

Rather than stay and fight for what they believe in (if they have any beliefs at all other than self-enrichment), the rats are leaving a sinking ship.

One of those leaving is Darlington Labour MP Alan Milburn. Having left the Cabinet in 2003, apparently to spend more time with his family, he nevertheless found enough spare time to sit in the boardrooms of several large companies, earning another £100,000-plus per year on top of his very generous parliamentary salary.

Mr Milburn has now decided to give up his job as an MP in order to pursue other interests. I wonder what these other interests will be?

Perhaps he is going to do some unpaid work at the local hospice, or he might become a volunteer nature warden. He might even find enough spare time to visit a few injured soldiers from Iraq or Afghanistan.

John Gilmore, Bishop Auckland.