SIR – We now find ourselves in a situation where zero-hours contracts, cuts in real pay, workfare, increased insecurity for the workforce and long working hours have become the norm for many in this country.

We should not be surprised as none of this is accidental. The 2008 crash, when bankers and financiers brought down the system, ironically allowed for the pace of the ‘neoliberal’ project begun at the end of the 1970s, to be increased from 2010 onwards.

This under the guise of austerity. ‘Neoliberalism’ is about allowing an unrestrained free-market to dominate with maximum profit the objective and workforces kept cowed and anxious on low pay, with declining rights at work. In addition, public services are gradually privatised out of existence and ‘regulation’ sidelined.

All of this allows for profits for the few to be kept high, costs low and the result is that at one end we see the richest getting even richer while at the other, the greater extension of poverty.

While many in work are being paid such low wages they struggle to make ends meet, those unable to find a job are demonised and stigmatised by politicians and the media.

This is happening in other countries throughout Europe too and therefore, it is no surprise to find unhappy people turning to fringe minority parties given maximum media publicity, which seek to offer scapegoats for the causes of these problems.

The fact that these same parties are also ‘supporters’ of the very same neoliberal project is unfortunately the worst irony of them all.

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose