Middle class can give up a little or the mob will arrive with pitchforks | Letters

Helen Channer Aupperlee thanks Robert Peston for what he said in his Guardian interview. And Linda Fairbrother's husband knows what to say when they're accused of being 'champagne socialists'

Thank you, Robert Peston, for saying the sanest thing I've yet to hear about how we might get ourselves out of this mess: "Maybe we [the middle class] should make some sacrifices and be a bit poorer" (Interview: 'I'm not saying Britain is finished, but our current problems are not a blip', 25 November).

The whole interview had me making connections with other Guardian writers. Sure, we can keep living the way we do, consuming what we want, as long as we're somewhat altruistic (Giles Fraser: It's called effective altruism - but is it really the best way to do good?, 24 November), but we'd not be making any significant changes to the system that keeps so many humans and so much of our environment enslaved to our desires (George Monbiot: Our annual festival of relentless consumption is trashing the planet, 22 November).

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