Sir, William Parsons (Letters, October 27) seems rather confused in his attack on cyclists who ride on the pavement and central Government responsibility for tackling crime.

He suggests that nobody cycled on the pavement between 1835 and 1999, when a new law came in making such an act illegal and that, since that date, lots of people have done so.

He then blames the Government for encouraging pavement cycling by making it illegal and, at the same time, criticises them for not doing anything about it.

The reality of the situation is surely that, since Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing as society, increasing numbers of people believe they can do as they please.

Whether speeding in cars, dumping rubbish at the side of the road, scrawling graffiti on walls or cycling on pavements, more and more people believe they have the right to do what they want.

Many such people argue that any attempt by central Government to change the behaviour of citizens smacks of the nanny state. Yet people also blame central Government for every criminal act, for teenage pregnancy, for mounting obesity and so on.

The Government has the duty to set the legislative framework within which society works but, surely, it is individual people who deliver or fail to deliver the behaviours required in a civilised society. So if more people are committing criminal acts, more people should be prosecuted and more people should be sent to gaol.

But that has happened over the last ten years with the result that the Government is now blamed for overcrowding in prisons.

In a mature and civilised democracy, people would understand better the difference between what Government can and should do and how we as individuals should all behave.

Stuart Skyte, Oxford