THE immoral, irresponsible culture and values promoted by Liberals in the Sixties were instrumental in creating a culture of single mothers and absent fathers.

It helped lay the foundation for the drug culture which is behind much of today’s crime and is destroying lives and communities throughout Britain. The actions of the political Left during the Seventies and those of the political Right during the Eighties only further damaged society.

After Margaret Thatcher left office, Britain suffered further damage by political, religious, community and business leaders, lawyers, edicts from Brussels, the PC brigade, human rights campaigners, the media, bankers and others whose self-serving, short-sighted, irresponsible, halfbaked ideologies and personal agendas removed discipline from schools and the home.

They made the police ineffectual, turned prisons into hotels and continue to increase social divisions, poverty and homelessness.

With all respect to JRC Shields (HAS, June 17) Margaret Thatcher didn’t create “Broken Britain”; her policies exacerbated existing problems and social divisions.

CT Riley, Spennymoor.