Congratulations to the Evening Advertiser for standing up (once again) for the common person over law and order.

We are now into the second generation for whom discipline and respect are the only dirty words, a world in which the thug sees the police on his or her side and the rest of us are powerless to stop crime.

It is all a far cry from the world promised us in the popular press during the 1950s when they looked forward to the 21st century.

Were it within my power, I would send every social worker and do-gooder into the frontline for at lest five years working, for example, in public transport, hospital A&E departments, shops or the police force (yes force, not service).

Strange that my generation never had the problems of today's 'yoof', but then our fathers had their own brand of ASBO it was called a rapidly moving hand contacting the back of the legs, or a smack for short, something very sadly missing in this modern world.

And if it really causes the problems claimed for it, how come the previous generations were mainly well-behaved and courteous while the most recent are mainly quite the reverse? It is a question no do-gooder has yet been able to answer.

We, the law-abiding citizens, pay many times for crime (council tax, income tax, insurance etc) yet in spite of the millions we collectively pour in we still have to watch our homes, our towns, our vehicles and our way of life destroyed by vandals. But try to stop them, like poor Tony Martin did, and you, not they, go inside.

The loonies have well and truly taken over. It's long past time we, the great silent majority, did something totally un-British and revolted so we can once again live without fear of crime.

G SCOTT

Swindon