Letter: Timely reminder of the real cost of growth in our post-opposition age

THANK YOU for encouraging a spirit of dissent in our post-opposition society ('Is today really so much better?', 3 January). You might even embolden the likes of John Smith and Paddy Ashdown.

The article could not have been more timely, coming as it did only days before the latest oil- spill disaster, an event that has given particular resonance to David Nicholson-Lord's point: 'Society is being forced to use more of the gains of growth to put right the costs of growth.'

J Wilfred Attenborough

Lincoln