David Cameron’s government had no choice but to adopt austerity measures - Yorkshire Post Letters

Bryn Glover (July 12) tells us that the “new Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, consciously selected the mechanism of austerity". As if they had had any real choice.

Most people do not remember that in 2010, an overspending Labour government left this country in an even worse financial situation than it faced in 2024. That forced its Coalition successors into policies of so-called ‘austerity’ (in reality a step by step return to balanced budgeting).

This was clearly explained to the House of Commons by Liberal Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws.

Then, as now, Britain had reached a state of saturation taxation, a point at which increases in tax rates would soon result in reduced revenue.

Gordon Brown’s overspending had left Britain dangerously exposed to repercussions from an American ‘sub-prime’ lending crisis. Bryn Glover blames a so-called "global financial community" for this crisis but true blame lies with virtue-signalling politicians who passed laws requiring lenders to provide housing loans to people with low incomes.

They imposed statutory quotas that they could only fulfil by getting buyers to take on mortgages which were beyond their means to repay. When these borrowers could not pay those politicians put the blame on the lenders.