IT’S snow joke as winter bites, leaving a trail of chaos across the nation. As usual, people are left to their own devices because only bus routes are gritted.

The usual lame excuses come from ministers’ lips and even mutterings about the Big Society. But in a time of The People’s Austerity, what should we expect?

As Christmas approaches, the spirit of Scrooge is spreading faster than an outbreak of swine flu.

Eric Pickles dresses up the cutbacks to councils flashier than a butcher does the Christmas turkey. His seasonal message is that we are being well and truly stuffed.

He draws up his sleigh, throwing snowballs of bad will to one and all. As if adjusting stockings over the mantelpiece, he manipulates the percentages that hide the true scale of the cuts.

Do I hear him mutter “ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum”? Of course not. “Ho, ho, ho, and what cuts do you want for Christmas from Santa Pickles?”

But the parallels to a pirate are there.

T Scaife, Manor Drive, York.