YOUR correspondent Peter Brickley (Letters, January 24) was quite right to pick up Mel Stride MP for his obfuscation in his benchmark column for the Times (January 17).  Worryingly, the example highlighted by Mr Brickley is not the only use of political spin in said column.

Our MP claimed that employment had risen by over 400,000 during this sorry shambles of a coalition. Any reasonable person would define employment as someone being paid to do work.

However, to reach the 'over 400,000' claim made by our MP one has to include in the employment figures everyone on the Government's work and training schemes. These people, whilst perhaps gaining valuable skills, are not employed in the sense anyone would understand them. They are still claiming out of work benefits such as Job Seekers Allowance.

I wonder how on earth Mel Stride would answer the question, 'how can someone claiming Job Seekers Allowance be considered employed?'.

Dave Goodwin

Sticklepath