Charity begins at home and our powers that be should be looking after us first, right? You would think so, but the way they are behaving lately shows that they have no idea.

Our own East Cambs. District Council has paid through the nose for a swanky new website.

Why then, under the ‘news’ heading is an item about a summer holiday event last year? It was posted on January 15 2016.

Is this the best news it can come up with? It does not fill us with much confidence.

Then Leicestershire Council told its citizens to have no more than six brussel sprouts at Christmas. Why, when there are so many families having to rely on food banks for any food at all?

A 77-year old RAF veteran is told he has to pay £55,000 now or he is going to be evicted from his home.

Yes, maybe he should have kept up his mortgage payments but the attitude of his bank beggars belief.

No mention is made of talking to the man and trying to come to a reasonable solution. It’s pay up or else.

A mother with her two children scattered the remnants of some food onto the ground for the pigeons. What happened? The over-zealous litter police fined her £80.

The council there had the wherewithal to employ a private firm to prevent litter being dropped, so when will it hire a private firm to make sure it pays what it owes its citizens on time?

The council responsible for the Grenfell building has apologized because it has failed to pay the money they promised. Apologized? Where is the hefty fine and interest added that we are charged when we make late payments?

On a larger scale, while there are so many of our citizens homeless, living on or even under the breadline and having to wait ages for benefits and years for council houses, how does our government justify spending billions abroad?

Worse than that, apparently it has increased the aid it pays to corrupt nations. Would you give your money away to a crook? I think not!

New Year’s Eve is a time of celebration and we all know that London is usually swamped with New Year revellers. So, what did the police do? They reduced the number of police on duty at that time.

They had cameras and other ways of policing, but common sense says you need real people on the ground close to the people needing protection.

It’s time those who govern us made a New Year’s resolution: take care of your own first, for that is why we pay our taxes and what they are supposed to do!