MY previous letter, published on April 27, contained only undeniable facts, whereas C. R. Johnson’s reply is mainly just a collection of unsupported personal opinions which are not worth a reply.

The only two facts he or she supplies actually confirm what I said in my letter.

It is true that the Labour Party had become unelectable, largely because of the reason I provided that the electorate had recent memory of the conditions of that time, and how the unions had made us a laughing stock throughout the world and had brought the nation to the brink of ruin.

No one who actually lived through those times would agree that the conditions brought about by continual strikes were only ‘a carefully manicured mythology’ and mere hyperbole.

By wisely voting Conservative in 1983 and 1987, in order to prevent the ‘left-wing militant tendency’ within the Labour Party from gaining power, C. R. Johnson helped to enable Margaret Thatcher’s policies to defeat that militant tendency provided by the Unions, as I stated in my letter.

In common with every Prime Minister, past or present, she had her faults and made mistakes, and there will always be people like C. R, Johnson with bile and bias who will slander her and belittle her achievements, but Margaret Thatcher’s place in history as one of our greatest prime ministers is assured and unassailable.

DENNIS B. WILSON, Southampton.