It is frustrating sitting at home watching the news when there are so many important issues to ask the government to explain, and so many areas where change and improvement is needed. Parliament should be in session to debate the next part of our mission in Afghanistan.

What will the government do to ensure a fair election result? When will the government turn from fighting to training Afghan troops and police so they can take on the security tasks? What more can be done in the meantime to ensure good equipment and better protection for our soldiers? It would be good to be able to ask the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to explain.

The government is printing and borrowing huge sums of money. We need to have more explanation of when they will start to curb the deficit. How much debt do they want to run up.? How do they propose that we should pay the growing interest bill, and when do we have to start paying it all back? Isn’t there a danger that too much money is lent to the public sector, starving business of access to the money they need for investment and working capital?

The main political parties do all now seem to agree that at some point in the not too distant future choices have to be made and priorities established. When you are spending and borrowing too much, something has to give if you are not to end up bankrupt. The sooner we get on with making those decisions, the easier it will be to control the runaway spending.