WALT Meadows, that renowned political and economic expert and worshipper at the altar of Thatcher and her ilk, now admits (Letters, December 11) that we haven't got the highest tax burden in Europe.

But we do, according to him, have the worst tax burden in Europe. What's the difference?

He goes on to say that we will eventually become the highest taxed country in Europe. So, now, he is a soothsayer too.

Mr Meadows must have suffered a shattering blow at the results of the 1997 election by the amount of spite he has subsequently shown.

He had better start taking his nerve tonic now in preparation for another bad experience coming up next spring.

He talks of the good legacy the Tories left behind. They left three million unemployed, a shattered mining industry, the selling off of public utilities (the railways into 69 pieces, for instance, with some of the results showing up now).

Also, they cost this country billions on Black Wednesday with their failed economic policies. And to crown it all, they left us with the BSE crisis.

His comments on the mugging of a 90-year-old lady are so much tittle tattle of course. Did we not have muggings under the Tory administration, and were no strangers ever attacked?

His sneering comments on the governments £200 heating allowance for pensioners ("just enough for a New Year's 'bash') belies the fact that the Tories' winter allowance would not have bought them a bottle of plonk between them.

His reported facts are "dubious" (his own word) gleanings and rumours from the Tory press -- a lot of it misrepresentation of the worse kind.

JOHN LEWIS, Douglas Place, Roe Lee, Blackburn.