Should Britain have fought with Hitler instead of against him?

Look, there is nothing anyone can do. Labour built the debt too high. Now you have to have years of austerity to get over it.

And even then you will never catch up with the new tiger economies of SE Asia. Obama tried to spend to stimulate the economy in America and it has failed. That is why there is such a problem there now.

There is no easy solution to Britains problems. We are trying to compete with countries that have very low taxation and hardly any welfare costs. I write to a girl in the Philippines who works in a sardine processing factory.

She is paid on piece work with no basic salary. She averages £2.50 a day. She works a six day week 12 hours a day, no sick pay no paid holiday no employment rights no health and safety.

If she loses her job there is no unemployment benefit and no housing benefit, nothing. That is what Britain is competing with and it can't. If Britain was run on these lines most of the debt problems for the country could be solved quickly, but would you want to live like that?

Oh, and in the Philippines you have to pay for all medical treatment and even for your childrens education. But this means government has very low overheads and business faces very low tax That is why Philippines is now the fastest growing call centre outsourcing business destination in the world today.. That is the world we live in now.

Not at all. Brown tried to sustain the economy with unrestrained public expenditure. As a policy this was fine all the time people felt better off and he was able to get away with soaking us with more and more taxes to pay for it.

As soon as the economy hit the buffers the tax revenues dried up and no-one was prepared to lend us the money to fund such profligacy. Cuts in public expenditure were therefore inevitable. Whether they are being made in the right areas is another argument.

Where the present government has gone wrong is to increase taxation. I don't think many people have a problem with increases in progressive taxes such as income tax because we clearly all have to contribute to the reduction in the deficit and it's only fair that those better able to afford it should contribute more. But if the government expects private sector growth to make up for the reduced size of the public sector then it needs to be cutting taxes which would otherwise discourage such growth.

The obvious taxes that need to be cut are VAT and employers' payroll taxes. A permanent cut in VAT to 15% (instead of the ineffectual temporary cut under Labour) would stimulate the economy and if the government expects the private sector to play its part in reducing unemployment, then it shouldn't be penalising employers who take on more staff. It's long been established that cuts in tax rates result in a higher tax take because of growth in the economy.

If that could be achieved the proposed cuts in welfare benefits wouldn't have such a devastating effect.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.