I THOUGHT that the Echo of October 28 was wonderful when it came to bad news.

A thousand jobs facing the ace, 12,000 council workers given a redundancy offer, a £90m hole in Hampshire’s budget with dire financial problems expected to last for a very long time, and this all on one page.

Just how long must the lower orders of the UK have to take the brunt of the country’s financial situation, a situation not of their own making?

Equal opportunity, social mobility, hard work, yes, we have heard those words, but the fact remains that by far the greater majority of the British people will have to accept a life of basic work, i.e. shop work, trades and work in agriculture, for example.

In spite of all the rhetoric about the economy being just about the best in the EU with few people out of work, we are informed that the number of children living in poverty still runs into millions.

It has become a matter of fact that the UK is more of a divided country now than for a very long time, with one section of society living very well, and the other just about holding on.

Is it not time the UK became a fair society and not just a case of winners and losers, with everything stacked in favour of the winners, i.e. those of wealth and privilege who for the most part have never known what it is to want?

In my opinion, no country can claim to be truly civilised as long as there is want and deprivation.

I am aware that if fairness and common decency were the norm, some people are afraid their standard of living would depreciate, and for them that would be a terrible thing.

C E WATTS, Southampton.