SIR – Re ‘Paying the price now’. Mr Parsons’s letter (T&A, January 6) is only too true, unfortunately for most of us.

Thatcher left us a dreadful legacy, ensuring that all the essential industries in the country be owned by the very rich people, to the enormous detriment of the rest of us who are now having to pay through the nose for all the essentials of decent living.

Mr Parsons cited gas, electricity, water and telecommunications, but he overlooked motor fuel and transport, particularly the appalling mess of our railways, now probably the worst and most expensive in any developed country, after being the first in the world.

And no-one in Government seems to be making any effort to get any of these things right.

Ian R McDougall, Hawkswood Avenue, Heaton