The reason for its past position? Just plain integrity, and firm banking procedure by bowler-hatted men and women who put honour
before self.

Non-profit building societies were allowed by a Labour government to turn into profiteering banks who have broken the bankers' code – "no loans without collateral" – encouraging people to borrow without the hope of paying back.

This, in turn, exacerbated the steep rise in house values and the difficulty for people to even get a house.

To me, this is a very serious national crime for a few very greedy people to destroy many people's lives. This catastrophe will no doubt cause many family breakdowns and possible suicides.

They cannot blame the United States, only their dishonesty and lack of moral wisdom – putting self-interest first before that of their customers is the appalling consequence.

They should be stripped of all their personal assets, houses, cars, yachts etc including those put in wives' or partners' names, to be sold off and passed to the Treasury.

They should never be allowed to becomes executives in any business again, but allowed to claim a Jobseeker's benefit and a job if they can find one.

In my lifetime, this kind of event has happened twice
and I had to continue working until I was 79 to be able to have a moderately comfortable old age.

This is the second time, and should have been seen by this Labour Blair/
Brown Government when so many leading figures in the country were
shouting about the housing problem.

Even the media did their best to keep everyone informed right through Blair's disastrous period.

It was Brown who allowed the building societies to become "banks" without any restrictions. The "blood" is on his hands.

From: Peter Broadley FCCA, Broadley & Co, Stainland Road, Greetland, Halifax.

SO Gordon Brown spends my money and (more importantly) my children's money to buy shares in the greedy banks. It may be the only solution to arrest the problem that the lack of supervision by the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority has caused.

To show how seriously the Government are taking the mess they have partially created, one has only to listen to Yvette Cooper (Mrs Balls by another name), on Newsnight the other evening.

Asked what the banks had agreed to justify the great bailout, she replied: "The banks have agreed to return to the lending levels of 2007."

Yes Mrs Balls, 125 per cent mortgage loan to cost, six or seven times self-certified income of the borrower. That recipe Mrs Balls, is just what we need again!

How about the tried and tested method – 80 per cent of the lower of cost or value and net weekly income to cover monthly repayment?

It worked before and it will work again.

Remember Mrs Balls, the money you (as a Government) have invested, has been borrowed, bearing in mind Gordon Brown's previous "form", when do you plan to repay it?

I think Mrs Balls, it sounds like you haven't a clue what you are talking about.

Tight-fisted Whitehall still holds back the railways

From: Colin Foster, Scalby Beck Road, Scarborough.

YOUR correspondent John Roberts (Yorkshire Post, October 13) accuses Dr Beeching of undermining our railway system through his report.

In fairness to the man, I think he was only doing what his paymasters, the government of the day, employed him to do: give justification to their plans for cuts and closures.

The late Sir Peter Parker – who was probably the best boss our nationalised railways ever had – said in a television interview that the greatest hindrance to railway development was "the dead hand of the Treasury". It was apparent in those days of state ownership that the railways were under-funded because of this.

Things seem to be no better now, despite the advent of "privatisation".

Because of the complicated structures for franchising the train operators, it appears that the Treasury, through the DfT, still holds the purse strings. I am told by people in the business, that it is the Treasury who ultimately control the building of new trains and more tracks.

If this is so, it seems that the train operators do not have the free hand at improving the system that privatisation would infer.

So, long after the days of Dr Beeching, the ability to plan ahead with vision and imagination is still being constrained by the tight-fisted attitudes in Whitehall.

We shall not have a first class railway system that copes with public demand until there is the political will to loosen this control.