The worst we've had since MacDonald

THE news from the Middle East gets bleaker and bleaker.

In Iraq, the 3,000th US soldier has been killed, An independent poll has revealed that a majority of Iraqis think they are worse off now than before the 2003 invasion. Hated dictator Saddam Hussein has been turned into a martyr.

Civil war rages. The Iraqi president wants to cut and run before his term of office ends and what is the West's answer? Send in more troops.

In Palestine, the US government has agreed to pour millions of dollars into the West Bank and Gaza - not for food and medicine, but to buy arms for the armed wing of Fatah, in the hope that this will ignite a civil war to bring down the democratically elected Hamas-led government.

While German PM Angela Merkel and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak attempt to restart the peace process, Israel continues to expand the illegal settlements.

Afghanistan is turning into yet another quagmire, with the warlords holding sway, funded by flourishing poppy harvests.

Our hard-earned taxes are poured into these bottomless pits while our health service, education and local government services are being forced to make cuts.

Roll on the May elections and an end to the worst Labour leadership since Ramsay MacDonald.

Cllr RAY DAVIES Caerphilly