YOUR correspondent Tom Mitchell asks “why has government borrowing reached a record high?” The answer is the Government has been spending £3 billion a week more than its income and this is increasing.

One reason for this situation is that overseas aid has been ring-fenced, also the Prime Minister has said this will be increased by 47 per cent, and he recently boasted that Britain gives more of its GDP to overseas aid than any other country.

We have the greatest debt of any first-world country, hence the savage cuts, but our PM can boast that we are the most generous country in the world.

All British governments since the Second World War have adhered to the principle that “charity begins abroad, not at home”. So we have the case of the pensioner who is faced with a taxi bill of £200 to get her NHS treatment, and parents of small children with serious health problems have to raise the money themselves to pay for treatment abroad.

Furthermore, an MP who is a senior member of the Commons committee for overseas aid recently said that aid for Third World countries should be our top priority, therefore our borrowing will continue to increase as we need the money to give it away.

H Brown, Scarborough Road, Rillington.