I WAS not going to bother to advise readers on the best and probably only way to get rid of this deficit which is creating so much misery. The trouble is that the top one per cent, known as the Establishment, are doing very nicely out of the present situation. The antique political show in which our politicians squeeze together on green-padded benches and shout abuse at each other is all shadow boxing. Some of them should know what to do. At Oxford many of them like the Millibands went and studied P.P.E. (Politics, Philosophy and Economics); a lot to take on during nine short months.

David Milliband actually achieved a first-class degree, but putting things right means hitting the most powerful people where it hurts the most. I enjoyed the same privileged education (which then cost nothing) but I studied Modern History which does give answers but it needs some ruthless leadership too. A book by the greatest of our economists, and, to many, the most brilliant Englishman since Charles Dickens, by name John Maynard Keynes, was and is the greatest authority on the Great Depression that exploded in the USA in 1929. This triggered an era of soup kitchens, suicidal brokers and mass unemployment. It was sudden, following a boom in the economy built on an orgy of debt and economic inequality. The richest 24,000 Americans received 630 times as much as six million of the poorest families. The top one per cent received nearly a quarter of all the national income. What has this got to do with us? Simply that proportionately these figures are a very close match to the United Kingdom in 2007 after a similar boom and bank failure in the USA.

Then President Roosevelt chose the most effective remedy, by pumping huge amounts of federal money into great public works such as the Hoover dam which created jobs and taxes.

In the UK we were saved by Adolf Hitler who came to power in 1933. In the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War 1 one section demilitarised the Rhine­land which would prevent another German attack. In 1936 Hitler sent in troops and re-occupied it.?France asked for British help in chucking them out but we refused, and Hitler was launched on his path to war. Eventually our Government started to re-arm and the employment created stimulated economic growth. Keynes analysed this and realised that employment was vital to recovery.

But a new factor has arisen. Savage cuts are acts of economic madness. Pouring money into banks is like trying to fill a colander with water. Private unregulated banks only keep perhaps 5 per cent of deposits, the rest is invested wherever the profit seems greatest, home and abroad. And the great game is avoiding tax or reducing this to nominal amounts. In London thousands of lawyers and accountants are working to help corporations find loopholes. The wealth of our country is drained into secret accounts in scores of offshore tax havens.

Today more than half the world's trade passes through these tax havens.?Over half of all the assets held by banks and a third of foreign direct investments by multinational corporations are routed offshore. The IMF estimated in 2010 that the balance sheets of small island financial centres alone add up to 18 trillion dollars a year, which is about a third of the world's GDP. In Switzerland there is a pretty lakeside canton called Zug. It hosts the accounts discreetly of 27,000 corporations; that is one for every four inhabitants, all tax dodging. This money is switched around from high-tax to low-tax haven. They are valued absurdly. Ballpoint pens in Trinidad have been valued at US $8,500 each to explain balance sheets. I could quote scores of other examples.

I spent two years teaching in?Switzerland. I was paid in Swiss francs which were deposited into the USB branch at Versoix. I went in and said I wished to close my modest account. The manager was sent for. "We do not know how to do this. We are calling Head Office."

While waiting he summed me up and asked if I would like to take over the huge and beautifully placed but bankrupt Hotel at St Cergue. It was a building far superior to where Princess Di had been "finished" 10 miles away. I had a vision of the perfect school I would establish, but decided UBS would wait till I was in profit and then take over.

So I came back to Coleford where the local bank refused to change my Swiss francs. "We do not permit business such as that."

I thought to myself "This country is doomed." Cut the Navy to not since the 15th century having a single warship ready for action in British waters (as the previous top admiral reported)? Cut the Forest's police stations and locate them in the commodious nuclear fall-out shelter under the district council offices, but if the Government is to save the country from economic disaster they must take over and regulate the banks, make the thousands of tax-avoiding companies pay taxes into the Treasury and save the hundreds of billions being lost in the worst tax haven of them all, the City of London.

Additionally tax the top 10 per cent of the wealthy for one financial year by 20 per cent. This would save us from being on the economic brink as so bravely described by our Chief Constable, but not just for the police but for all the vital activities that are now in peril.

– Roger Horsfield, Bream.