D J COOK’S ill-conceived attempt (letter, January 10) to exempt the Labour Government from the responsibility it bears for the financial meltdown it helped to cause, and the social misery that followed, is wholly unconvincing.

Overspending, easy credit, lax banking regulation, gold reserves sold off at a knock-down price, a benefits system trapping people in welfare dependency, deliberate uncontrolled mass immigration which undercut British workers?

Nothing to do with us, say Labour’s apologists.

On food banks, contrary to what Mr Cook suggests, these did not start three-and-a-half years ago. The first food bank was set up in 2000 and their number had grown tenfold between 2005 and 2010. This, too, is a legacy of the Blair-Brown years.

DOROTHY FUDGE, Totton.