GIVEN the privileged position that Mel Stride enjoys in your newspaper, one might have expected him to have been a little more even-handed in his analysis of the Chancellor's Autumn Statement (December 13).

He could, for example, have acknowledged that because of the slow growth and high unemployment resulting from the Coalition's policies, the Government are borrowing £212-billion more than planned and that working families are losing some £279 next year, while 8,000 people earning £1-million a year are getting a tax cut worth an average of £107,500.

Dr Peter Brickley

Chair

Okehampton and District branch Labour Party