AS we approach a General Election I find it hard to believe that as far as education goes one in three 11-year-olds leave primary school unable to write properly.

Contrast that with the promise by the then new Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett MP, at the Labour Party Conference in 1998, "We will ensure that every child can read, write and add up by the time they leave for secondary schooling."

Quite obviously a failure to deliver.

Or consider the words of the Prime Minister when he was in opposition at the Labour Party Conference of 1996. Mr Blair said in his conference speech: "There should be zero tolerance of failure in Britain's schools."

Yet 33,000 children left school last year without a single GCSE. And going on to nearly eight years in government Labour can no longer blame its failures on the previous Tory government. However, that won't stop this government from trying to do just that.

It is easier to do that and to accept that in nearly eight years children as a whole are coming out of schools less educated than in 1997 prior to the General Election.

And as we know our Prime Minister is very good at believing in things that don't exist.

Let's be fair MPs of all parties would not have voted for war in Iraq without Mr Blair's assurance that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which could be employed against the West in just 24 hours.

As we approach a General Election I trust the British people will judge this government on its achievements or lack of them rather than the spin and half-truths which this government have so mastered since they came in power.

Councillor D PEARSON, St Michael's Court, Blackburn.