ON DEAR! Steve Plant and Peter Collett (Oxford Mail ViewPoints) really don’t know how bad the financial situation is for the country – with total borrowing approaching £900bn – and this year’s overspend £156bn (and that’s the previous Labour Government’s figures).

To put this in context – the cuts the Government has announced represent about 3.6 per cent of this total. The Government is therefore borrowing about £1 for every £4 it spends.

Now any household doing that would quickly have to curtail its spending – or raise its income – and it’s no different for a Government, which must either cut spending, raise taxes – or both.

The only debate is where those cuts take place and when, and what taxes rise and when.

It was former Chancellor Alistair Darling who stated, at the end of March, that Labour’s planned cuts in public spending would be “deeper and tougher” than Margaret Thatcher's.

One thing is for certain – as stated by the Governor of the Bank of England – whoever won the election on May 6 would be out of power for a generation, due to the highly unpopular, but necessary, steps they will have to take.

No wonder the Labour Party wasn’t keen on a coalition.

PAUL WILSON, Kennedy Close, Oxford