WE have now had over ten years of Labour government, so they cannot blame anyone else for what is about to happen to the UK, although they will try to blame the banks and the USA.

Gordon Brown when chancellor boasted of his prudence and claimed that he had abolished boom and bust. The electorate were taken in, although those of us with an economic and business training were not! But most people wanted an easy fix, which they thought was on offer. The informed believed that the result of Labour policies would be a disaster for the people of this country.

Just a few facts show the degree of financial mismanagement of the economy: The UK has spent more that it has earned in every quarter since the third quarter of 1998. The annual deficit for 2006 was £50.7 billion, that for 2007 was £57.8 billion. This year it will be greater. No country or organisation can spend more than it earns for ten years or so without going bust! Money poured in to plug the gap, some to buy our businesses, the rest as loans, which will have to be repaid. Interest and dividends then go overseas and the taxes on them go to other countries. We consumed our assets! It is the government's job to balance the economy, if it doesn't we will be in the hands of the IMF.

Many of our leading companies have been sold off. Just to mention a few of the better known - British Steel, P&O, Scottish & Newcastle, Abbey National, Electrical and Water Companies, Airports and Sea Ports, Jaguar and Land Rover. There are scores more. The money received from these sales has gone into helping to close the shortfall on our trading account, but in the long term we lose the profits and the tax on them. Our future is threatened by current spendthrift policies. In addition, companies are leaving the UK because of tax threats, the latest is Shire Pharmaceuticals, our third largest drug company and one of our top 100 companies, to Ireland. It is the old and working people of this country who suffer most from this government and will suffer more as we increasingly struggle to pay for our imports. The governments of the 1990s and 2000s have squandered the financial legacy of the 80s.

The UK is overly dependent on the finance sector of our economy. This sector loosely call the "city" last year accounted for almost half the growth of the economy, it pays one third of all corporation tax and accounted for 120% of employment growth in 2007. It contributes a surplus of nearly £20 billion per annum to our balance of payments. There are more financial sector workers in the UK than constructions, farm and factory works combined. Its workers pay a massive amount of income tax.

This driving force of the British economy is about to hit the buffers because of tax and other changes. The lax fiscal control by the chancellor over the last ten years or so has created the largest credit bubble ever, which could well destroy this engine of growth. We are substantially more in debt per head than any other country. Personal and national debt will need to be repaid and we are losing the ability to create the income to do so. The Northern Rock crisis was created by government incompetence and this has inflicted further damage.

We desperately need a Churchill or a Cromwell to undo most of the legislation of the last 15 years and for the British to wake up. There is no such thing as a free lunch, you have to earn it!

Michael Carter, Tredova Crescent, Falmouth

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