Published: Friday, 26th February, 2010 9:00am

Letter: Bitter pill for the Tories to swallow

George Osborne has hinted at it, now Rob Wilson has confirmed it (Chronicle, February 18) - the Conservatives regret the money that Labour has spent on schools and hospitals, which has raised standards, improving results in schools and shortening waiting lists for hospitals.

They wouldn't have spent it. They would rather schools had continued to crumble - Reading Girls School would have had to be abandoned by now under that policy of neglect, and it's probably not the only one.

They would rather the Royal Berks and Battle Hospitals had continued as they were in 1997 when the Tories were last in power, with long waiting lists, doctors and nurses struggling to provide decent care in wards and operating theatres increasingly past their sell-by date.

If the Tories are elected again either locally or nationally they won't spend any more on the services ordinary people need.

They really are back to what the economist JK Galbraith called private affluence (tax breaks for millionaires) and public squalor (dirty, overcrowded and unsafe hospitals).

Peter Kayes, College Road, Reading