REFERRING to Jim Tague’s letter (HAS, June 1), he mentions that due to the Labour government, ten per cent of manufacturing jobs were lost in County Durham between 1998 and 2005.
He must have a very short memory – or a selective memory.
Like many Conservative party members, he does not remember the glory years of the Tory party, between 1980 and 1991, when thousands of jobs were lost in British Rail engineering, the mining industry, the construction industry and cigarette manufacturing.
Do the names of Consett steelworks, Shildon wagon works and Rothmans not ring any bells?
These three firms alone lost approximately 5,500 jobs. Also, Swindon, Horwich, Eastleigh, York and Doncaster lost thousands of jobs due to the closure of British Rail Engineering workshops.
Stephen Hadden, Bishop Auckland.
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