SAJID Javid’s article in the Advertiser (July 15) asked the question, “Why, as 1 per cent of the world’s population, do we spend 7 per cent of global welfare?”

This is a silly comparison that is intended to mislead.

Many countries spend little or nothing on welfare, which he well knows. A proper comparison is with the developed countries of the world, where the average spending on welfare is 20% of GDP.

In the UK welfare spending is the same, 20% of GDP. So let’s have no more deceitful claims from Mr Javid.

He claims that the budget supported “hardworking families”. It did not. The Economist magazine and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, neither of them bastions of left wing politics, point out that “hardworking families”

on low incomes will suffer financially as a result of this budget. This is in addition to the big fall income already suffered by poorer families as a result of Osborne’s previous budgets.

Mr Javid has proposed recently that unions should not be able to call a strike unless at least 50% of the members vote in a strike ballot. That seems democratic enough, until you note that Mr Javid was elected by just 38% of the voters in Bromsgrove.

Does he not see the democratic contradiction here?

Mr Javid’s latest column in the Advertiser was no more than party propaganda. Our MP should try to represent all the people of Bromsgrove, not just the ones who voted him in. Previous conservative MPs have managed to do this.

Neil Holmes, Rockhill, Bromsgrove