THINK AGAIN ABOUT THIS ‘WEALTHY NATION’

Paul Donovan, in his thoughtful letter about pensions (9 March), ends by commenting about our economy being the fifthbiggest in the world. This is a mantra fast becoming the received wisdom.

It is often used by pundits and politicians of every hue, often in television interviews and on programmes such as Question Time. Yet these are weasel words which clarify nothing. It is my guess that the figure derives from the amount of money sloshing about in the system, particularly in the City of London. The words are an effective way to mislead.

Where would we be in this league table if we considered the quality of life and standard of living of our citizens? I suggest that we would be much lower down. We spend less on our health service and our education system than our European neighbours do. Our infrastructure is an inadequate disgrace. Extortionate house prices, housing shortages and poorquality housing put us well down the table of developed nations.

There are now more than a million people on zero-hours contracts. If this is success, what is failure? Decades of making money from money at the neglect of real wealth creation have left us in a sorry state. However much money bedazzles the City, politicians and media, we are not the wealthy nation they would have us believe – and certainly not fifth in the world. David McKaigue

Wirral, Merseyside