Letter: Voodoo economics?

Sir: Gordon Brown cancels some Third World debt and tells these countries that they have to spend the money on health or education (report, 18 December).

The money in question was given long before Gordon Brown's time and was spent, or misspent, by distant predecessors of the current Third World governments. Where is the money that these governments are supposed to pay the extra teachers to reduce class sizes? What these countries do not need is voodoo economics.

I welcome the debt cancellation, but how dare he tell other nations how to spend their tax revenue when at home he is squeezing health and education and planning another binge of income tax reduction?

R J G MACY

Tunbridge Wells, Kent