Letter to the Editor: I sat for 20 minutes in a mile-long queue at temporary traffic lights to get to Gloucester recently. 

Potholes predominate on our roads. A lack of funding has led to a lack of maintenance. There is a parallel with the wider economy.

The pothole mentality of our government when applied to the cost-of-living crisis, NHS, schools, child welfare, adult social care, sewage in rivers, transport, housing, farming for food, and business investment (….the list goes on) has produced a Britain where, as a Bank of England official said recently, ‘ we have to get used to being poorer’.

Maintenance of our society has not been a priority since the Tories came to power 13 years ago.

The rich amongst us have got richer (with those in power benefiting from sleaze and secret donations, both legal and illegal) whilst many of us have got poorer. The number of foodbanks has increased from zero in 2010 to at least 1200 today (not including those of the Salvation Army and others); do we class this as a success or an indication of failure?

The Conservatives’ ideological clinging to a hard Thatcherite approach to capitalism, in which “public-is-bad, private-is-good”, has taken much that was owned by the British people (where quality of service was paramount) and sold it into private hands (where profit, often going overseas, is paramount).

Add the detrimental calamity on business and trade resulting from Brexit, and we have Britain at the bottom of the G7 economies and vying for bottom place with Russia for the bottom of the G20. Yes, we have become a poorer country with the poorest bearing the brunt.

The pothole approach to government is evident throughout our society and the Tory omnishambles continues.

Michael Heylings, Mitcheldean