SIR – Like many prospective voters in the forthcoming General Election I tuned in to the first TV debate between the leaders of the three main political parties.

I was particularly interested in the discussion about education, when Gordon Brown stated that “to have the best education for our children, we do need the teachers and the teaching assistants”, as well as pledging that “we will maintain our investment in education.

As someone who, together with a colleague, lost his teaching assistant job at Thornton Grammar School only three weeks ago as a direct result of financial cuts, I therefore wonder how the Prime Minister (and my Labour parliamentary candidate, Marsha Singh) are able to reconcile these assertions with my actual experience.

Maybe they can explain why two teaching assistants, with a total of three years’ service, had their jobs cut at the same time as Gordon Brown can warn David Cameron during the debate that “it’s a risk too far if you cut teachers and teaching assistants”?

To paraphrase that well-known saying, it seems that in the run-up to this election (like others before), we still need to beware of “lies, damned lies and politicians’ promises” when deciding who to vote for.

Martyn Pearce, Dyson Street, Heaton, Bradford