IT IS interesting to read that so much of your published readers’ letters express considerable enthusiasm about the UK remaining as full members of the European Union – if for no other reason than their financial affairs have not been audited for 19 years.

Some of the features of a totalitarian state, be it communist or fascist, are:

An all-powerful leader, carefully insulated from the general public;

An enfeebled Duma, kept docile with perks and pensions, rubber-stamping the decisions taken by the leader and his inner circle;

Confiscation of funds from private wealth producers, redistributed to the state dependents to keep them voting for the party;

Repeated announcements of extravagant central spending on services which in fact only get worse;

Central control of every aspect of life;

Heavy regulation to discourage all private activities;

Undermining of marriage and the family;

Substitution of the state as arbiter of morality and provider of security;

Propagandisation of schoolchildren;

Preoccupation with targets, not results.

Have you noticed any of the above in a country near you?

John Haw, Stone Close, Balksbury Way, Andover