I REALLY could not believe the robotic offerings in the letters section (Warrington Guardian, October 24) from Esther McVey MP.

I was mistaken before when I thought I had heard the worst cases of denial from Tory politicians.

The same can be said of their collective selective memory loss.

Mrs McVey seems to have a total memory loss of the 14 years of Tory austerity, when particularly northern councils were starved of funding, when they were also forced to make millions of pounds worth of savings, redundancies and cuts to local services.

Additionally, they were forced to take on investments to try and mitigate the effects of the severe cuts in funding imposed by central Government.

Mrs McVey also made no mention of the Conservative-run councils that got into financial difficulty.

Is her fear of devolution deals based on the realisation that central Governments, whatever colour, would find it harder to impose such punitive cuts in towns particularly where there is a shortage of Conservative councillors and MPs and where the north-south town divide may have to come to an end?

Could it be that Mrs McVey cannot accept that the Conservatives lost the General Election, and the possibility that devolution deals may cancel her influence on politics and policy decisions?

Echoes of America perhaps.

KEN WORMALD

Latchford

WHAT utter tosh in the letter from Esther McVey in last week’s Guardian.

It is impressive to be an MP but have such little grasp on reality.

If she was so keen on the north, why didn’t she do anything about it when her party was in Government for 14 years?

Places like Warrington can generate hardly anything from council tax compared to the enormous sums places like Westminster get from Government.

This is despite the fact most of the people who live there are on salaries of six figures and above.

The ‘minister for common sense’ I believe she called herself – she should have been the minister for little sense.

Let’s hope if devolution happens, she is nowhere near becoming mayor of Cheshire.

As her letter proves, she lacks any knowledge or interest in the politics of the north and its people.

Rather she would score political points than do something to try to improve our lives.

As shaky a start as Labour has made, I am glad I can dismiss the comments of people like Esther McVey rather than have them running the county.

ALAN JONES

Lymm