I welcome Mr Sloam's contribution to the debate on Edgware General Hospital, published in last week's letters page.

I am sure Mr Sloam and Mr Wyner will agree that the voters were cheated of a decent debate on health in this year's general election. This was as much the Tories' fault as it was Labour's. I hope that we, in a very small way, can redress that.

Mr Sloam echoes Mr Wyners' mistake in thinking that the last Tory Government sought to close Edgware General. Mrs Bottomley's plan was to turn Edgware from a general hospital to a community hospital.

The Tories started the job, and after 1997, Labour finished it.

So, why then are Mr Sloam and Mr Wyner so touchy about ancienthistory? Before 1997, Labour whipped up huge expectations about the NHS. Everything wrong with the NHS was, they said, all the fault of the nasty, wicked, Tories. People believed Labour's propaganda. Then Labour made a terrible mistake they believed it themselves.

That's why they came to power with no plans, no ideas just a few slogans about the NHS. They found the NHS's problems very hard to solve. They also found that Tory plans for reforming the NHS were the best that they could think of too.

So, they followed these plans. That's why Edgware is now a community hospital, just as Mrs Bottomley promised.

These reforms were unpopular. That's why Tory MPs like Rhodes Boyson, Hugh Dykes, John Gorst and John Marshall protested until they were purple in the face.

I have a question for Mr Sloam and his colleagues. You know all this extra money Labour has promised for the NHS? Everyone assumes that it will produce better healthcare. Will it? What guarantee do we have?

David J McKee,

Borehamwood Conservatives.