THE Government’s plan to have local pay agreements instead of national pay agreements is old Thatcherism brought to life.

In the 1980s, Norman Tebbit, then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, or perhaps a better title would have been “Minister of Unemployment”, proposed the self same in unemployment payments to encourage those out of work to look for jobs.

The difference is that the new Government’s action will encourage the population up north NOT to look for employment. Another fine mess old Thatcherism will have got us into.

GLYN LIMMER, Roosevelt Road, Long Hanborough