WOULD Walt Meadows (Letters, September 14) not agree that anyone buying shares in any of the privatised companies was not gambling?

It was a sure-fire way of anyone doubling their investment overnight.

My argument is: if a man and his wife could afford to apply for the maximum share allocation, is that not money going to money?

"At least, the Tories are not hypocrites," says Mr Meadows. Let us take the fat cats of all the privatised companies. At one Question Time, Mr Major said it was up to the shareholders to have them removed from the board of directors.

Would Mr Meadows not concede it would be impossible for any single shareholder to out-vote the big City financial institutions' block votes?

R BUTLER (Mr), Denville Road, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.