Essential reading

It was disappointing to read the “Lost Generation” letter from the university graduate of 1981 where he ascribes our present catastrophe to Conservative policies grounded in monetarism and Thatcherism.

Both writers and many more of your correspondents seem to take no heed of the unpleasant fact that at present we need to borrow £3 billion each week to fund our excess of expenditure over income.

This enormous burden is very largely due to the spending programmes initiated by Gordon Brown when chancellor – remember it was he who spent more than we earned even in the “good” years when the now much-maligned City was producing “Monopoly money” profits with his approval. Incidentally, even if the planned cuts in expenditure are effected, we still will be borrowing £1bn each week.

What do these gentlemen propose in place of the present plans to continue borrowing? We witness what is happening in Greece and Italy as salutary lessons.

Undoubtedly, we have now the prevalent myth that our woes are all due to the bankers and their ginormous bonuses and nothing to do with the Labour government; myth creation is the one thing Labour is good at. It is a great shame so many folk fail to realise the root cause of our position.

Perhaps it should be a mandatory requirement that your correspondents read the articles of Bill Jamieson.

RS Stewart

Burnbrae Avenue

Glasgow

ALAN Hinnrichs, (Letters, 21 November) in another tirade, in typical left-wing fashion gets things wrong. He bemoans the change in benefit increases from the CPI to the RPI when in fact it is the other way round! Either link is a nonsense when millions of employees are suffering pay freezes or below-inflation rate increases. The logical link would clearly be to the lowest of changes in CPI, RPI and average earnings.

Kenneth Cowe

Cromar Drive

Dunfermline