Marcus Wood

It stinks.

We learn nothing from history do we? After a couple of decades of hard lessons about nationalisation and 'central economic planning' we learned by 1979 that the last people who should make business decisions are politicians, especially Labour politicians.

The whole sorry tale of New Labours attempt to introduce a more relaxed gaming and gambling regime is rapidly looking like a return to the bad old days of Governments interfering in business - with similarlily disasterous results.

On the one hand the one remaining 'supercasino' that is going to be allowed is looking more and more like a pre-scripted stitch up rather than an open merit based contest. When the idea was first mooted for a supercasino the prime candidate was Blackpool, which would have been the perfect place; now it looks like it will be a white elephant at the wrong end of London.

Meanwhile we read that places like Luton and Canturbury are more likely to be 'selected' by the Government for the next generation of casino's than Torbay.

What in the name of all that is useful have the Government got to do with it? Why should some Whitehall quango know better than the Casino operators and local planners what is best for us?