The UK's current mess has its roots in the 1980s

PHILIP Bowern asks, in his Herald column (April 30), why has the quality of our Prime Ministers been so low of late.

- Paul Whiteley

Well, go back to the 1980s, when Reagan, echoed by Thatcher, for ideological reasons of right versus left said: “Government isn’t the answer, Government is the problem!”

Both were heavily supported by the already rich, whose concept of freedom is different to that of ordinary people, as they began their job of deconstructing sensible and practical government, in a more determined way than Trump is now.

How shortsighted and narrow were their intellects that they were not able to see that reducing the power of government left the way open for anyone with money to come in and mess things up, as we now see with our water, our power, our public transport, our food, even that darling of the right, roads, which have fallen apart.

They talked about government intrusion into our lives - see how that turned out. Google could probably work out what you ate for breakfast and what time you go to the toilet.