Back into the red

The country has entered a double-dip recession. It gives me no pleasure to be able to say I was right in predicting worse economic times to come. It gives me no pleasure because of the effect on ordinary citizens and their families.

The Government has sacrificed jobs and public services on the altar of debt reduction, all to no avail. The deficit is growing and the economic growth that could pay for jobs, services and deficit reduction is way below the distant horizon.

The Prime Minister clings to his myth that there is a crisis of public debt. He seems blind to the real crisis, namely the absence of economic growth. Certainly, he has no credible policy for growth but he continues to apply the cuts to jobs and services that have done so much to land the country in its present predicament. It is past time to abandon such blind Tory ideology and, in the national interest, to change course. Without realistic government policies for growth there is little prospect of an early escape from the pit the Government has dug for the economy.

MICHAEL HUTCHINSON.

Gregory Springs Lane

Mirfield