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
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