SIR – Here are a few figures to ponder.

The Government intends to cut £2 billion from the benefits bill, saying £1 billion is due to benefit fraud.

What they don’t say is that £16 billion is saved in unclaimed benefits, and if low-paid workers and proud pensioners claimed what is rightfully theirs, the Government would be in worse trouble.

Between £42 and £70 billion is lost due to tax evasion by the super-rich, ie, the top five per cent. Enough to pay the deficit. Billions are going to Europe to bail out a currency we do not belong to.

If the Government had given the money to the public it gave to the bankers, every working-age adult could have had £38,000 each! Enough to pay off nearly everyone’s personal debt and enough to boost the economy.

The neo-cons always talked about a free market and capitalism, but what we have now is a kind of reverse perverse socialism, where the banks are always bailed out, the super-rich do not take any losses or risks and the poor suffer!

Graham Binns, St George’s Place, Little Horton