I was amused by Cllr John Tanner's claim that some newspaper owners cannot stomach the success of this Labour Government (Oxford Mail, December 12).

Everyone without a job is shuffled into some demeaning make-work scheme, so that we don't count as unemployed.

In practice, it's just the dole with graft and an extra tenner a week, a con at taxpayers' expense.

If there was any real work going, we would do it - for real wages.

Such 'workfare' was first thought of by a Ku Klux Klansman, David Duke. It was Blair, not the Tories, who was crass enough to import it from America.

As to the rest of Cllr Tanner's letter, it's just a grovel to his boss.

JOHN CONNOR

London