SIR – The trouble with politicians across the world and Europe in particular, is that they are both stupid and deceitful. They want to spend money they do not have to buy votes to keep them in office, and if they can do it off-balance sheet, all the better. The Government has plenty of off-balance-sheet debt which has not yet been found out. The investment banks who are institutionally amoral and greedy simply facilitate this.

Now politicians are blaming the banks for providing the crowbar to rob the cash till. How do I know this? I am an ex-investment banker turned politician.

Godfrey Bloom, UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, Main Street, Wressle, Selby, Yorkshire