Letter: Growth points

Sir: I find it alarming that in this post-Thatcherite era Jeremy Warner is still advocating deregulation as the panacea for British economic problems ("The problem with British inefficiency", 31 october).

No one wants to burden industry with unnecessary overheads and bureaucracy but to still believe that unfettered markets are capable of delivering optimal and fair outcomes is naive. Regulation of an enlightened nature is required to ensure entrepreneurs, organisations and individuals, in the pursuit of their own advancement, provide for social needs without destroying the environment.

Incredibly, Jeremy Warner still equates growth with an improvement in the quality of life. The "trickle down" view of social change is discredited and a more "balanced scorecard" approach to measuring policy success is required. More traffic is not progress!

As Keynes said, "It is not so much generating new ideas which is the problem but letting go of old ones".

SIMON HUSTON

Durham