CHRISTMAS is the time for myths and the one involving Father Christmas has given pleasure to money over the years.

More pernicious are the myths put around by the Government. The top three include the fact that publicly owned organisations cannot be efficient and financially viable.

So the East Coast Main Line must be sold off for the profits of the bankers when it was running efficiently in public ownership and contributing more revenue to the Government than any of the other privately owned railway companies.

Then we have the NHS being “safe in Conservative hands”. Which is why, presumably, a senior Conservative MP, recently chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, has taken a job as “advisor” with the financial firm KPMG who are trying to bid for £1 billion in privatised NHS contracts.

The third myth has been repeated so often it has almost become the accepted truth.

According to the Government, the country’s financial problems stem from overspending on welfare by the previous government; the true reason that the problems were caused by risky and dishonest practices by bankers internationally is rarely mentioned these days.

So the banks are rewarded with billions in quantitative easing and the poor get their welfare budget cut. A particularly Christmassy one that.

The gap between rich and poor is ever widening – that is not a myth. Happy Christmas.

Keith Gailer, Bewlay Street, York.