O Robin Eadle (ViewPoints, April 2) doesn’t think a treasury plan B would work.

Perhaps we should go for a plan C because there’s no sign that plan A ever will. One gets the feeling that some people look upon government spending in the same way that they look upon a household budget, where one limits spending to match ones income.

Government isn’t like that because its income isn’t fixed and comes, almost entirely, from earnings, whether from individuals or from businesses. To guarantee that income, the objective should be to keep money moving by having as many people in work as possible.

Lack of money moving through the system results in failing businesses and also reduces ability to grow and export.

Often quoted as a good example of how to deal with a depression is the ‘New deal’, introduced by FD Roosevelt, in the USA, during the 1930s’ depression, when the government started a series of building programmes which seemed to stop the slump in its tracks.

Unemployment, in the USA, started to climb again after the government withdrew from funding public works but, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, climbed again when government spending rose to fund the manufacture of armaments for the Second World War.

DERRICK HOLT

Fortnam Close

Headington