HOW I hate party politics! Pat and Bet Spaven (Letters, May 23) rightfully castigated Maggie Thatcher's policy of selling off council housing, although the almost criminally insane bit was in refusing to allow the councils to use the money to build more housing stock, enabling them to accommodate more homeless or inadequately housed families. They then went on to praise the present Labour government.

I wonder where they have been for the last few years, while John Prescott has twice tried to force Southampton City Council to hand over its housing stock to housing associations (the private sector). The latest occasion being the stock option fiasco where 97 per cent of tenants voted to stay with the council.

I have a horrible feeling that a good proportion of tenants who bother to vote at the next election will do exactly as their parents before them used to without considering the issues that really matter, and that for this reason good independents find it impossible to win elections against lacklustre opponents of the main parties.

How they can justify voting on a class basis mystifies me as I cannot see any difference between the incredibly rich leaders of the Labour party and the equally rich leaders of the other two main parties.

Southampton's council tenants currently subsidise the private sector, and their rents are rising each year to meet the generally higher rents of the housing associations, this entirely due to Government dictate.

So please, please, please think what you are doing at the next election, local or general, and don't vote for outdated and irrelevant reasons.

ALAN KEBBELL, Southampton.