I do wish history would not keep repeating itself. It makes me feel quite anxious, what with slump-like downturns, wars that don’t go exactly according to plan and botched operations.

I would therefore urge all readers to give wholehearted support to those politicians, journalists and other influential people who have expressed their determination that these disturbing contretemps “must not happen again”. If fact, I think Gordon ought to appoint a Must Not Happen Again (MNHA) tsar. Then we can all relax, knowing that in future we shall have only unprecedented disasters to worry about.

William Dixon Smith
Welland Rise, Acomb, York.