Whenever one opens a newspaper, turns on the radio or TV, all one seems to get is doom and gloom, with such things as another daily, violent crime, another serviceman or woman killed, another stealth tax, another silly idea by this Government to sort out some problem or other, which either won't work or is 10 years too late, another MP found out doing something naughty, and more niceties heaped on us from Brussels.

I have long since come to the conclusion that the powers-that-be, be it central or local government, appear to have nothing but contempt for us ordinary folk.

Still, they all know best what's good for us, even if it isn't.

Everything is already rubber-stamped, regardless of public opinion.

We are fortunate that we have periodic elections where we are allowed to vote out our MP or a bi-annual city or county councillor if dissatisfied. But we are stuck with the executive officers, some of whom appear to have been in office since Noah built his ark.

They make the decisions on our behalf because they know best, but we do have the privilege of paying their salaries and keeping their final salary pension funds topped up. There is talk of a 2p in the pound rise in income tax, but I thought I heard Gordon Brown say, in his Budget last year, that this year there would be a 2p cut in income tax.

Did I dream that, or is it another one of his U-turns?

With a war on two fronts costing us billions, and all the other blunders where they waste taxpayers' money, what else can we expect?

It's been said that Britannia is going from our 50p coins. Perhaps she is being replaced with a Brussels sprout, or a haggis.

I get really uptight over some things I read, hear or see.

That is why I write to my local newspaper to express my disagreement or disgust and many, many people feel as I do.

I am probably on the Gestapo's hit list for being a nuisance with all my letters and will probably be thrown in jail as a dissident when the KGB in Brussels rule us lock, stock and barrel. If that happens, perhaps I will have the good fortune to have Tony Anchors for a cellmate and then we can really put the world to right.

Michael Clarke, Lewell Avenue, Old Marston, Oxford