SIR – The financial cost of Britain’s part in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has just been revealed by a respected defence think-tank.

The sum is revealed as being a massive £30 billion – or the equivalent of £1,000 for every taxpayer in this country.

Of course, the human cost in terms of the deaths of military personal and the even greater number of civilian deaths, not to mention the surviving wounded, damaged and traumatised must be regarded with even greater sorrow, but many will wonder what exactly was the good achieved that justified all of this.

When we see the NHS in dire financial circumstances, schools unable to get financial support from central funding for necessary repairs, essential public services being slashed everywhere despite obvious need, we should ask ourselves in whose name do governments which make such decisions think they are governing?

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose