Gordon Brown deserves praise for his handling of the banking crisis - Yorkshire Post Letters

It may be an inconvenient truth but Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling managed to sort out the world banking crisis, when several of the world bank CEOs refused to believe the severity of the situation. This cost money, but what was the alternative?

It was a certain Margaret Thatcher who allowed building societies to demutualise in the early 90s heralding the era of casino banking. The Labour government had no part in closing the Bradford and Bingley Building Society. Replaced on the site by Lidl.

Gordon Brown received the award of European statesman of the year for his efforts by the way. A fact that was largely ignored by the UK media. Growth at the time of the 2010 general election was higher than at almost any time over the following ten years due to the austerity imposed by George Osborne and David Cameron. Three hundred swimming pools closed as well as public services decimated.

Fast forward to Covid and when the clown Johnson was finally located after being missing in action for a month, the first plan was to open a fast track to supply the government with PPE and ignore the dozens of companies in the UK pleading to be given contracts. Then tens of millions of pounds worth having to be incinerated as it was useless. Plenty of business acumen there then.

Rachel Reeves was an economist at the Bank of England and does understand that many billions of pounds are just waiting to be invested once the dust has settled after this circus of the last 14 years.

Great acumen shown by Liz Truss as the pound sank ever lower against the dollar and interest rates climbed costing average mortgage payers £250 per month more in repayments.