I FOUND Tony Withers’ letter in last week’s Guardian quite amusing.

I assume that unlike Messrs Fox and Edwards, he lives across the road in Labourland. Let me try to explain the reason some people are suffering a degree of hardship.

I think he must have conveniently forgotten the note, left by the last Labour Government in the treasury offices: ‘There’s no money left’.

Please forgive me for stereotyping here, I have no wish to offend but I think it might just help to explain the situation better.

Assuming Mr Withers works, and hands over £50 to Mrs Withers for housekeeping. They live a life of Riley, dinning on caviar, steaks and lobster, all washed down with champagne. After a year he says to her ‘I don't know how you do it love, this is fantastic’. ‘I don't’, she replies, not on what you give me, I've been borrowing £20 a week from Nellie next door’ (We'll call this the deficit). ‘How much do you owe her?’ ‘Well, she says, it's £2000. (We’ll call this the national debt). At the same time, Mr Withers is put on ‘short time’ (let's call this the recession) and can now only give his wife £40 housekeeping.

They then have two choices. Do the Withers’ A) Decide it would be a good idea to borrow an additional £20 from the woman who lives on the other side, while still borrowing the original £20 from Nellie, so that soon they will owe £4000, or B) Decide to ‘cut their cloth’ accordingly and start eating bangers and mash, egg and chips and beans on toast, while at the same time paying Nellie £5 a week off their debt. (This is austerity) If you answered A which I think is rather stupid, then that is exactly what the Labour party wanted to do. Yes, the man who ran up the debt, the man who borrowed all those £20 notes was Ed Balls; and he wanted to knock on the other neighbour’s door and borrow even more!

If you answered B, then that is what the coalition Government is trying to do. We are not there yet though. We are still borrowing more than the housekeeping we earn. It’s coming down, slowly and as the economy grows, which it is, the Government will be able to reduce its borrowing even more.

It’s a slow process, but soon we’ll be able to give Nellie a tenner and while we might never get back to a champagne lifestyle, we'll be able to afford the odd steak or two.

Derick Acton Walton