DAVE DALTON (D&S Times, Nov 18) asks why we no longer provide essential public goods, such as buses or library services, from public funds.

The answer can be given in two words: Margaret Thatcher.

Yes, she tamed rogue trades unions (a good thing) but almost everything else that her governments did was a disaster for this country. Her dismissive remark that "there is no such thing as society" and her aggressive hostility towards anyone or any group who disagreed with her rapacious, winner-takes-all attitude to politics dealt a mortal blow to the post-war consensus that had brought about the welfare state.

Instead of moving in the direction of our European neighbours, especially the Nordic countries, where high levels of taxation and equally high levels of public provision are accepted as the norm of a civilised society, Britain since the 1980s has seen a widening gap between the well-off and the rest. There have been increasing attacks on public services such as the NHS and care for the elderly and increasing stigmatisation of those at the bottom of the economic pile.

For too long now people in Britain have been asking for European levels of social provision with US levels of taxation and we don’t seem to understand that this is simply impossible.

Roger A Fisken, Burneston, Bedale