Letter: Hints from the reconstruction of eastern Germany: A selection of readers' letters from the overwhelming response to our 10-point plan for recovery

Sir: I note with approval that you do not include in your 10 points for national recovery that we should give ourselves tax cuts. The Government used them to curry favour a month before the election, but we could not afford them then and we certainly cannot now.

The money which might be set aside for such cuts should go towards helping local authorities meet their commitments for care in the community which they must fulfil next April. The Government should learn from the national outcry on behalf of threatened mining areas that there is much wider concern for hardship we see daily around us than it has hitherto recognised.

Yours sincerely,

GILLIAN TURBERFIELD

Oxford

22 October