HERE we are, in the second decade of the 21st Century, and a relatively prosperous little town like Tavistock is having to collect food for distribution to those sadly fallen upon hard times. What next? Oxfam?

It would be so easy to blame the present Government for this shameful state of affairs, but the truth is that successful governments of both left and right bear responsibility for our present position. The UK should be as prosperous as Germany, but we have been systematically misruled and mismanaged, so that in most social indicators: crime rate, prison population, drug abuse, child welfare, infant mortality etc, the only developed nation that seems to routinely do worse than us is the United States.

Our state education system turns out too many people with no qualifications, or qualifications that have no use in the real world; our health service groans under the weight of its responsibilities, while it spins on a merry-go-round of one futile reorganisation after another; our roads are jammed; our airports close at the first fall of a snowflake; our shipyards rust; our aircraft manufacturers make bits of aeroplanes; our car industry mostly belongs to foreigners; our coal mines are flooded, our steel mills are silent, and our banks won't lend long-term money to get the next wave of manufacturing started. Meanwhile, our young are unemployed, and often virtually unemployable.

All I can say is that neither main party has much to be proud of, while the Liberal Democrats have lately tarred themselves with the same brush and will no doubt suffer for it in due course.

So you politicians, shut up, stand in the corner and hang your heads in shame. You have done nothing remotely like a good job for this country. Only come out when you really do have some idea of how to sort out the mess you have all created.

K M Jones

Whitchurch Road

Tavistock