Only those hell-bent on justifying privatisation can reject the case for joining our neighbours in adopting more sensible borrowing rules.JOHN PERRYDirector of PolicyChartered Institute of HousingCoventry. After all, the economic impact of borrowing to build air traffic control centres is the same whether National Air Traffic Services is a public or private body.The same problems bedevil other parts of the public sector – the Post Office, municipal airports and council housing – which get most of their revenue from charges for services. There is an overwhelming case on safety grounds to keep it in the public sector. Yet PSBR rules dictate that public borrowing is bad for whatever purpose. The only route to raising the required cash is therefore privatisation.
Such a situation would not occur in any other European country, because none of them follow the ridiculous strictures of the PSBR.

Sir: Your report on the possible privatisation of air traffic control (23 September) highlights the absurdity of the public sector borrowing requirement (PSBR) rules. Here we have a profitable industry which needs to invest to increase its profitability. Overworked and under- paid? Prostrate yourself, Japanese-style, on a mattress on the floor. According to one large telephone sales company, futons, fountains and fish tanks can help prevent stress at work. Ergonomic restructuring of the office is, doubtless, a good idea But let’s be honest. British employees have the lowest morale in Europe not because they lack fish and flowing water, but because they work longer hours.
Better that the rail signaller who worked 43 days on the trot should take a weekend off than have a waterfall installed in his signal box..

Fed up with your boss? Gaze at goldfish. That is part of the reason why the two established parties make such good Aunt Sallies for Liberal Democrat leaders enjoying all the fun of the seaside fair.. The Liberal Democrats have a lot to offer, but their honesty must include a recognition that The Voters are not quite as wonderfully liberal-spirited and reform-minded as Mr Ashdown would have us believe: they are good and decent, in large measure, but they are also warty and inconsistent, and sometimes reactionary and mean. The party helps make itself distinct by claiming to be holier than the others. But to translate any or all of its policies into reality means engaging with those other tainted parties.

But what it requires is political gamesmanship, deal making, dalliance with the arts of the possible Here is the Liberal Democrat paradox. Yet the very basis of the Liberal Democrats’ current political identity is that they are the party of coalition and consequent compromise.Mr Ashdown was careful yesterday to couch his claims in terms of what the Liberal Democrats would do to temper the other parties, to keep them on the straight and narrow That is indeed potentially their most valuable role. Westminster, he infers, is a sink, a den of dishonesty and fudge The People, by contrast, see things clearly They have no truck with compromise and dissembling. It is going to take a lot more persuasion than Mr Ashdown offered yesterday to convince the comfortable majority that they should pay more tax.Mr Ashdown toys with a possibly dangerous Manichean notion of political life. Up to a strictly limited point, we have all accepted a large part of the Thatcherite agenda. The fact is, as Tony Blair recognises, the political culture has shifted in recent years. If they were the paragons he implies, why have so many voted Tory for so long? The response, that political outcomes are untrustworthy because non-proportional voting prevents the popular will getting translated into Westminster representation, is not entirely convincing.