Our wonderful Government has kindly contributed £86m to help victims of last summer's floods. Some of this piffling amount was given to Oxfordshire residents.

The average repair costs of £30,000 per home were subject to VAT.

The extra money collected by the Government on VAT alone was some £525m, giving a surplus of some £439m. Will this Government windfall bonus be used to clean ditches, dredge rivers and improve drainage?

No chance - the money is urgently needed for other more important things like the £5m spent by ministers last year on wining and dining - more than £100,000 was spent on maintaining the exclusive Whitehall wine cellar.

So while you sit in your caravan waiting for your house to dry out, sipping a glass of Tesco Chateau de plonk at 99p a gallon, spare a thought for your masters drinking vintage brandy at £50 a glass, poor darlings. The sooner Gordon Brown and his lot scarper, the better.

The only trouble is - who will replace them as they all seem to have little interest in the common man and are concerned only for themselves?

TONY ANCHORS Didcot