Is it any wonder that this once great nation of ours has gone to the dogs?

In the situations vacant section of the Oxford Mail, 90 per cent of the jobs on offer are mainly for office and support workers, with very few for the manufacturing industry.

Britain used to tool the world and most people were making things that were exported worldwide.

Now, apart from BMW in Cowley and a few others, mainly in the hi-tech industry, this country exports very little.

When I worked on the factory floor, there were half a dozen office workers for every 100 machinists - now it's the other way round.

Most workers sit in front of computer screens, pushing bits of paper around, surfing the Internet or exchanging emails and produce little of material value.

As a result, Britain has been turned into a huge warehouse, full of imported consumer products. Home-grown products are almost impossible to find.

To keep up consumerism, Gordon Brown and his predecessors wafted money around willy nilly to the masses, with no checks on their ability to pay it back.

This enabled them to buy useless luxuries from China and to buy houses with 110 per cent mortgages which, in turn, fuelled rises in house prices to astronomical levels.

Now the bubble has finally burst and a recession is certain.

The money men are running scared back to their pads, with loads of fat commission cheques to tide them over, while the majority of the population are realising that they have been had over.

Anyone wanting to buy a house in Oxfordshire needs about £20,000 for a deposit and a further £5,000 to pay other costs.

This sum is out of reach of many young couples. This will lead to a big drop in house prices, leaving thousands of families struggling with negative equity.

My youngest is lucky enough still to have his job as a bricklayer, but on one house building site, 200 trowels have been laid off as the houses already built remain unsold.

When the boss of failing Northern Rock is paid off with £760,000 in his pocket and a £2.6m pension pot instead of being sacked, and greedy MPs give themselves big rises while expecting the rest us to get by on peanuts, it only goes to show the contempt that the Government and City types have for the common man.

With the cost of everything rising, including council tax, food, petrol, electricity and gas, and with household incomes falling, we are in for a sticky time.

My advice is to tighten your belts as things are going to be rocky for a good few years yet, but this applies only to the peasantry as the money boys will have it covered.

I think I'll have another quid on the Lottery and if I'm lucky, you won't see me for dust.

TONY ANCHORS Didcot