Bankrupt Britain

CHARLES DICKENS’s Mr Micawber, from david Copperfield, was a famous economist. His view was: ‘Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19 and 6d, result: happiness. Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 and 6d, result: misery.’

However, successive governments seem to have followed that other famous economist, Viv Nicholson — ‘we’re going to spend, spend, spend’. The difference appears to be that she had some money, they do not.

The income of this country is, realistically, zero. We are, in effect, supplementing our wages and profligate lifestyle by borrowing, currently about £70billion annually. We are also trying to make interest payments to creditors whom we owe upwards of £1.7 trillion.

so what do we do? Let’s replace Trident — cheap at £23 billion — and boy, will we be able to kill lots of innocent people. Let’s have a couple of aircraft carriers — conservative estimate £6.2 billion. We can then get closer to more innocent people and kill them.

But just in case people think we are nasty, let’s give them money we don’t have — foreign aid of £12 billion. Well, it’s peanuts. We could also build a railway, Hs2, for only £56 billion.

But, in truth, all these figures are pie in the sky. Not a person on the planet, let alone in this country, knows the true cost. What we do know is they are almost always a huge underestimate of the final bill.

My question is this: is there a political party prepared to follow the wisdom of Mr Micawber — don’t spend what you don’t have? A party that is realistic and uses common sense? My vote is waiting for them.

MALCOLM CRAVEN, Bognor regis, W.Sussex.