SIR – It is common knowledge that the way out of economic recession is by creating employment through public sector infrastructure works, usually, building and civil engineering. The Government knows what to do – but it has other priorities.

It is also common knowledge that Tory doctrine dictates, once elected, they smash up the public sector and put the NHS into the hands of the capitalists.

That is what has been happening in this country since 2010. The inevitable outcome of this divisive social engineering (ie taking from the poor to give to the rich) is mass unemployment. That is how Tories deal with the poor.

For the rich, there is another agenda. In the past two years, the Government has given £460 billion of our money to the banks. The same banks, whose reckless and crooked behaviour caused the biggest financial meltdown in history, and from which, the world is still reeling?

In order to give that figure some scale, £460 billion is more than three times the annual NHS budget – is more than four times the annual (and ever-increasing) welfare budget – and is more than half of the total annual national budget.

Are we getting the message yet? Are we?

Christopher Hindle, Osterley Grove, Bradford