Our politicians are populist cowards who are afraid of difficult decisions and act as if there is a magic money tree

They are only back in power a few days and already they are going to Westminster with their begging bowl asking for more handouts instead of taking unpopular decisions to raise more money and cut unnecessary expenditure.

Each party is so afraid of losing voters by introducing cost cutting or revenue raising measures and being blamed by their coalition partners that nothing happens.

They seem to think that there is a magic money tree in Westminster that can be called upon to deliver in spite of the fact that we get more funding per capita than Scotland or Wales.

Nobody likes paying more in taxes or having a cut in some services but hard decisions need to be made and the MLAs can no longer take the soft populist option and hope Westminster will pick up the pieces.

And then there’s the proposed luxury of Irish and Ulster Scots language commissioners with their office staff to top it all.

Mr J Fullerton, Magherafelt