CAN I be the only one in the country who wonders why our Minister for Culture, Media and Sport is so determined to introduce vast casinos into Britain?

For our healthy entertainment? For their beauty? Because betting and losing all we have is best for our citizens?

To add to the many ways in which we can waste our time and join the ranks of addicts?

Surely not! But a dark suspicion creeps in, unasked. Remember when we hadn't planned to go to war against Iraq? But later it turned out we had agreed to it many months before?

Remember when Geoff Hoon came and assured us that no deal on Star Wars had been agreed with the USA? Then it turned out that it had been agreed long ago?

It couldn't be, could it, that those nice men from Las Vegas have secretly agreed with us to plant a few of their second-hand casinos (no tax paid, of course) in our favourite towns and resorts? Just because they like us?

Now we must try to make it look as if the nation has agreed to invite them in, and to boost their empires and fortunes. Yes, democracy. What a wonderful idea! The mother of parliaments and the biggest of suckers? Surely not.

Perhaps it was just a bad dream.

Joyce Pickard,

Saville Grove, York.

Updated: 09:18 Wednesday, November 03, 2004