PAT Cooke (letters, March 25) poses a question to a parliamentary candidate but I have one for her about what was our “British Airways” before Thatcher’s privatisation bill (for which she had no electoral mandate)?

Willie Walsh, now in charge of this “stolen property”, is stated in ‘The Guardian’ to have received a basic salary of £735,000 last year, in contrast with approximately £30,000 for cabin crew now resisting pay cuts!

Does Pat condone this 24-fold differential and the “filthy-rich” incomes of the commercial establishment?

I hope she agrees with me that it ill becomes Mr Walsh to uphold such an exorbitant pay-difference; also that recent financial events have shown the urgent need for control of that establishment before the nation and world are failed once more, perhaps irretrievably.

John Smith as Labour’s Shadow Trade Secretary said in 1980 that “The Labour Party intends to reacquire those assets because it believes in the public ownership of a national airline.” Alas his successor as leader failed to implement this. Gordon Brown deserves to be encouraged to do better.

FRANK McMANUS