Dear Sir,

I have just returned from a holiday in Bermuda, where my grandfather served in the Garrison for six years, and where various uncles and aunts were born. It is also where my two grandchildren, together with the family parrot were also born.

I wish I were less saddened by the signs of a false prosperity that abound.

At the airport, they are building unnecessary and costly new runways and terminals.

Along the South Shore Road, there are empty blocks of expensive new flats that will never be occupied.

The whole of the island’s finances are in topsy-turvy condition.

These unsustainable extravagances are the result of too much interference by crackpot politicians.

In a single generation, we have moved from a frugal and cautious government, which accumulated healthy reserves and held the ring for entrepreneurs to risk their own money, to the home of a destitute treasury that as day follows night is certain to lead to an exodus of wealth creators.

The proper purpose of all governments to do very little, to amputate their mortmain, itchy fingers and to allow the people to flourish.

There are many outstandingly fine people of all races in Bermuda who do not wish or deserve to see their homeland become the Venezuela of the Atlantic occasioned solely by the distorted rhetoric of a few hotheaded jacks-in-office.

MICHAEL D. TURNER

Sevenoaks, Kent

England