In Robert Buckland’s column of March 4 he praises Swindon’s employment statistics, but in a recent report on towns and cities with the highest and lowest growth between 2004 and 2014 Swindon was in the lowest group, with a deficit of 6.5 per cent. With Britain having the lowest productivity in the developed world, 30 points below the USA, Germany and France, we have nothing to brag about.

He also mentions the electrification of the Great Western main line from Paddington to Swansea, a project signed up for by Labour in 2009 and cancelled by the Coalition in 2010, along with a building programme of schools and affordable housing. If those projects had been carried on, with an annualised growth at the time of four per cent, we would be laughing now. If it’s with ideological dogma that Osborne’s pet project austerity is to be continued under a Tory-led government, summon the bailiffs!

Nothing in George Osborne’s curriculum vitae even hints he knows anything about economics, a one-two degree in modern history, too lazy to take history as a whole and the political creed of a Neo-Con American Republican: he is not fit for purpose.

Can this country survive another five years of Cameron and Osborne? In the Economist’s book The World in Figures, the balance of payments and current accounts of 92 countries are listed.

Of the 50 countries with the largest surpluses, Germany leads with a surplus of $255.4 million, with China second. Of the 42 countries with the largest deficits, the USA leads with minus $440.4 million; the UK is second with minus $94.3 million. As a percentage of GDP the UK is minus 3.8 per cent.

These figures are for 2012. At the time of the Autumn Statement it was minus six as a percentage of GDP, the worst figure since the Second World War. Frightening!

MJ Warner Groundwell Road Swindon