Sir, – We are fast approaching the end of 2014, and yet we are seeing more and more stories in the press and on TV like the woman whose children have left her in a three-bedroomed house, and as a result she has to forfeit £40 of her £73 benefits due to the unfair bedroom tax.

There have been programmes on TV about children living in poverty, and yet we hear in the press about multi-million schemes for faster trains and an estimated bill of £3 billion to overhaul the Houses of Parliament.

The three most important areas of spending in the UK – health, fire services, and the police are all suffering major financial cutbacks yet vast sums of money can be wasted on things that are really not needed or can wait.

The government says that firemen must retire when they are older; I would like to see some MPs do that job now, never mind later in life.

We have all had to suffer the austerity cuts yet MPs had a salary rise of 11 per cent and the national debt has not fallen – we are still borrowing money.

Is it any wonder when the prime minister says we cannot afford to pay the massive demand from the EU yet the chancellor says he has negotiated a 50 per cent discount. One hand does not seem to know what the other is doing.

This country should stop paying vast sums to Europe, and dishing out foreign aid. We should keep out of wars that are nothing to do with us, and when our priorities are right and the country is back on its feet with no debt then we can start making plans for improvements. Until then we must look after number one first.

I also think it is about time we had a government made up of working class people, as we seem to have a better idea of managing money more effectively. After all, if we are in debt we simply cannot get more cash from the banks – they will not lend to us.

C P ATKINSON

Guisborough Road, Great Ayton.