Jason Reed (The Yorkshire Post, June 23) continues to push his right wing libertarian line suggesting that ‘‘nanny state’’ interventions are aimed at the pleasures of the working class.

This time his target is the increasing efforts of Parliament, pushed by campaigners, to limit access to gambling by restricting advertising, making regulation for online betting and limiting stakes on gambling machines.

It is a common thread of libertarian thinkers to seek popular support by saying that restrictions are targeted at the ordinary people, but The Yorkshire Post ( June 24) tells us who the campaigning is aimed at helping.

A gambling machine. Pic: Daniel Hambury/PA Wire.

Betting firm 888 reports that profits have been hit by “the impact of additional safer gambling measures” including “for online betting”.

These safer measures are aimed at real issues – at suicides, at bankruptcies, at debt accumulation, at behaviour that leads to family breakup.

We do not, in this country, allow people free access to guns, and we see daily in the USA the misery that such access brings – is Reed’s next campaign going to be against the “nanny state” restricting gun access for the “common pleb” (and incidentally stopping the gun manufacturers making their profits)?

'Nanny state' claims over gambling measures leads to dark places - Yorkshire Post Letters