Rachel Reeves (July 1) blames the Government for rising costs of living, flagging economy, and rising mortgage interest payments and, in particular, Kwasi Kwarteng's Autumn Statement for rate rises that were already bound to happen.

Let us consider what are the true causes.

These include a pandemic, lockdown, furlough and an independent Monetary Policy Committee's mismanagement of our currency.

A closed sign in a shop in Lincoln city centre during England's third national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus. PIC: PA

Under lockdown, many people were prevented or hampered from doing their regular jobs so fewer goods were manufactured and fewer services provided. This made this country a lot poorer than it otherwise would have been.

Under Furlough, huge sums of money were spent on paying millions of people for work that they were not allowed to do. Issuing this money, when there was less to spend it on, made inflation and interest rate rises unavoidable.

Did opposition politicians warn against these dangers? Actually they asked for more.

Monetary Policy Committee members were too obsessed with ‘Modern monetary theory’ to see these dangers.

Interest rates,which they had kept at unrealistically low levels since 2008, were lowered even further. This not only discouraged savings but also forced up house prices and created a trap for house buyers, by luring them into borrowing more money than they otherwise would have done.

Most of Rachel Reeves' proposed remedies seem to involve spending more money to solve problems that had been caused by creating too much money. This is at a time when taxes have already been raised to a level where higher rates actually begin to lower tax receipts

She also blames the Government for failing to "secure a Brexit deal that works in Britain's national interest". Has she forgotten how much she and her colleagues did to make our leaders' task more difficult?

Blame lockdowns for rising mortgage costs not the Government - Yorkshire Post Letters