MARGARET THATCHER’S time as Prime Minister is blighted by instances of acting without due consultation.

With the intention of changing the ways of “seaside scroungers” a ruling was passed in the Eighties that board and lodgings DHSS claimants had to relocate after a fixed period of time.

This ruling affected all claimants, although those at seaside resorts were given less time to stay.

I agree that unemployment benefit should be for those actively seeking work and not for people seeking a long seaside holiday – if that is still worth doing after paying for board and lodgings.

This rule may have hit the seaside scroungers at whom it was targeted, but it also hit many genuine job seekers.

Surely, being forced to move on like that must have unnecessarily harmed the employment prospects of many genuine job seekers?

Seaside resorts do provide seasonal employment.

The Government wanted young claimants to return to the parental home, overlooking the fact that those who had been brought up in local authority care could not do so.

Jeremy Whiting, Chester-Le-Street.