IN recent weeks I have come to sincerely believe that I and 99 per cent of the British people have themselves firmly rooted on planet Earth. The political and banking establishment are on planet Zog, however.

We heard last Thursday that former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin has magnanimously offered to give up part of his £700,000 pension. Are we all supposed to be cheering to the rooftops? He will still be drawing more than ten times the salary of the average breadwinner, who is struggling to make ends meet on account of the wreckless behaviour of him and his like. We are told that he has done nothing legally or morally wrong. All I can say is that the establishment’s idea of morals and mine are separated by a chasm.

I also find it hard to understand why his knighthood has not been revoked. I suspect that in the time of Elizabeth I his fate would have been very different from now. In those days, people were not rewarded for failure.

Peter Hill, School Aycliffe, Co Durham.