SIR – In 2010 in the absence of an election winner, the coalition government was imposed on us.It was said that it would tackle the huge deficit.

Ever since then the nation has been groomed to expect an austere and bitter downgrading of expectations and decency.

What has happened is a highly educated and wealthy elite has consciously decided to redistribute wealth by undermining the standard of living of millions of ordinary people, in particular the poorest, as well as undermine the public sector.

People on disability benefits have been subjected to a widely condemned assault on their security which has created great suffering. So much divide and rule the taxpayer is being petitioned to resent, or at least be deeply suspicious of, non-taxpayers.

It has been a masterclass in undermining the nation’s morale, the most counter intuitive approach to a nation in trouble by a talentless spin-savvy unlikely alliance which while standing shoulder to shoulder one day are attacking each other the next.

Responsible tenants with nowhere else to go face eviction because they won’t be able to pay their rent once their housing benefit is reduced because of the bedroom tax; public servants sacked in droves; services cut, many disabled people redefined as fit for work.

Students are being lumbered with a colossal debt upongraduation.

People in private accommodation are encouraged to be resentful of those in public sector housing whose housing benefit paid for their spare bedroom.

Selling off the social housing stock placed greater reliance on the private sector and that has sent rent levels and accordingly housing benefit expenditure through the roof, lining the pockets of private landlords who in effect produced nothing to the country.

A significant percentage of the workforce can only afford to work because of tax credits, so even a large number of working people survive through welfare support and so subsidising employers who ought to pay appropriate wages .

This was a great nation and unfortunately its industrial potential was undermined and neglected in past decades, a unconscionable amount of our country’s wealth is subsumed into the EU whose citizens have seen Great Britain as an international jobcentre. We see the triumphs of our history all around us in our architecture, landscape and institutions and innovations, the progress of centuries and the legacy of our ancestors and yet now we are in what seems an economic and social death spin.

ANDREW BROWN

Worcester