He had abolished boom and bust, made all the right calls, kept debt low, invested in the future and was a man of substance. Strange then that he has not sought to comment on the Budget cuts. The cuts introduced by the Eton-educated Tory George Osborne are a direct result of failures of Gordon Brown to regulate the financial markets. Mr Osborne's Budget speech was not so much an attempt to sort out the public finances as it was declaration of war against the poor, the sick and the working classes. The bankers and the neo-feudal oligarchy who caused the financial crisis, however, are delighted that they will be able to continue with their perfidy and larceny. Mr Osborne tells us we are all in this together but he made no attempt to close the loop holes in the tax system which allow the super-rich and corporations to avoid paying up to 25 billion per year through tax evasion and avoidance. Instead, cuts have to be made in education, health, libraries, bin collections, jobs, pay cuts, pensions, redundancies and other public services. Mr Osborne has an agenda which seeks to privatise all public services. During the election, the Lib Dems slated the Tories for a proposed increase in VAT to 20 per cent, calling it a regressive tax. The Lib Dems have again shown that they are prepared (as they were in Holyrood in 1999) to sell out all their principles for a whiff of power. The Labour Party is trying rewrite history and pretend that the cuts are all the fault of the Con-Dem alliance. In truth, all the parties are equally responsible and do not represent the people who elected them. ALAN HINNRICHS Noran Avenue Dundee With little joint planning time from the development of the crisis to the Budget speech, the coalition may or may not have done all that could reasonably be done to get the financial crisis under control. It is not all cast in tablets of stone. Adjustments could be made. Evidence might emerge that the less well off are being wrongly disadvantaged. A further emergency Budget could be announced before then. We are all in this together. The coalition did not cause the problem. In the Second World War we pulled together. We must do that now. MICHAEL HAMILTON Stodrig Cottages Kelso Ignoramus I may be on matters of national economies, but details as to Britain's alleged national debt are not on public display, are they? Who are the UK's creditors, for example. Is the IMF the main creditor? Do we have debts to Swiss banks? Is it simply (or less simply) a matter of trade deficit, ie importing more than is exported? If the latter, is it any wonder, given that manufacturing industries have been savaged over recent decades. Too many questions without readily available answers in all this. Or is it, as many Greeks are saying about their alleged financial plight, the people who had nothing to do with causing the problem who are being required to pay for the problem? IAN JOHNSTONE Forman Drive Peterhead