I HAVE been following the opinions in the letters page over the past few months, and in particular those concerned with pensions, council tax, public amenities, and cuts to services.

I believe that all these issues broadly lead to the question; what kind of society do we want?

In which direction do we want our nation to develop? A consumer society? An insular society? A society bound to status and technological advance? A nation that despises the beggars and drug addicts on our streets, and values only money?

Swindon is a microcosm of all these, and these problems have increasingly been writ large in the Evening Advertiser.

How many of us see these trends becoming worse, not better? With no prospect of reversal to a more stable society.

Perhaps now is the time to stand back and ask ourselves what do we want for the future?

Twenty-five years ago politicians persuaded the electorate of Britain that we didn't have to pay so much tax to ensure a just society.

This strategy was designed by the right wing, to recruit the middle classes and the higher earners and rich members of society.

What it did was make society more fragmented, increase the gap between rich and poor, and destabilise the welfare society, because of restricted funding as a result of falling tax revenues.

Swindon is the unmarried mother capital of the country, and as a nation we are not happy.

The foremost cause of death in young men is not drink, fighting in the streets, careless driving or even drugs, though they may play a part.

It is suicide.

The lack of optimism, bleak future, whatever the cause, indicates a deep malaise within our society.

The Scandinavians, though they certainly do not live in a utopia, have societies at much greater peace with themselves.

Unlike Britain, they seem to have come to the conclusion that a decent society has to be paid for.

Further, they have engendered societies with far less crime (Britain imprisons more of its population that any other nation in Europe, I believe), and their social services and other infrastructures are far better funded.

Britain should adopt a graduated income tax based on the ability to pay. This would redistribute wealth to make society whole and cohesive. This would enable the funding of the kind of measures that we would all like to receive when we are old, young, ill, homeless or vulnerable in some other way.

D Harrison

Toothill