YOUR editorial (January 3) blaming the council for ending bus subsidies rings hollow.

If the Government had not cut local Government funding the Labour-controlled council would not have to remove the subsidies.

You then propose selling our art to keep our buses! What will you do for the next two years when similar cuts have to be made?

Your editorial mentions the privatisation of the buses, Thatcher’s legacy. How about returning our public services to us, the public?

Privatisation of bus, rail and now the NHS results in public suffering. The privateers make money from profitable services, and we tax-payers subsidise them to run the rest.

Is it wrong for the public to benefit from a profitable public service?

When the council ran the buses, the profitable routes subsidised the non-profitable ones. Simples!

If the Labour council sets a so-called balanced budget they are trapped into making “difficult decisions”.

Labour’s longer-term problem is that bus passengers may not blame the government for robbing them.

The danger is that they may believe the lie told by the Echo: that responsibility rests with Labour.

DAVID J SMITH, Swaythling, Southampton.