Letter: No more daft soundbites - give us the unpalatable truth
Ed Miliband's pledge to freeze energy prices was as daft as David Cameron's assertion that we're "all in it together".
The Coalition inherited a ruinous £700 billion of debt from the Blair/Brown government, but despite their very public efforts to reduce it, that figure will double to an astonishing 1.4 trillion in just the five years to 2015.
Factor in our financial, personal and private debts, plus our unfunded obligations (i.e. public sector pensions) and our total debts amount to ten times the worth of our entire economy.
People find it impossible to believe that the UK is so broke that we could lose the free health care and many welfare privileges that we take so much for granted.
They can't imagine the meltdown which would occur if the interest rate on our national debt was to increase by even half a percent, but those who can, should remember the 70s – rubbish piled in the streets, the dead unburied, public sector strikes causing chaos, inflation spiralling to 28 per cent and higher rate tax of 83 per cent.
We were broke then too, but whilst our problems were serious enough to warrant IMF intervention, we had industries and assets that no longer exist today.
I cringe when I hear stupid populist sound bites.
We're in real trouble and what I want is brave politicians speaking the unpalatable, unbearable truth and combining forces with each other to rally the nation in an effort to avoid the suffering that was inflicted upon Ireland and Greece.
Sadly, I know that I've got more chance of seeing a flying pig and consequently, I give it five to seven years, no matter who forms the next government.
Bob Jenkins, Stirchley
