INSTEAD of condemning President George Bush's efforts to protect the livelihoods of US steel workers by introducing import levies on heavily subsidised steel from outside the United States, Mr Blair may well have done better for the UK by taking a similar action many months ago.

This would have saved thousands of jobs in the British steel industry. Instead, he allowed British Steel to be slowly decimated by cheap imports from Europe and the Far East.

The question now arises: Who is our prime minister really working for, the people and the nation he was elected to lead or some third party best beknown to him only? It is however not too late for Mr Blair to show where his true loyalties lie by following in George Bush's footsteps, thus saving the few jobs that remain in our steel industry.

Jon Aylmer-Smith,

Riversleigh Ave,

Lytham.