Government must get to grips with huge public works debts

WHEN Gordon Brown’s and Ed Balls’ policy of all boom and never bust failed catastrophically, they were shot out of office by a weary populace fed-up with their promises of jam today, jam tomorrow and jam forever more.

The coalition Government, quite naïve and unsuspecting, found that all the money was gone. Not only that, the country was mortgaged to the hilt with eye-watering PFI deals promised to rich bankers, and other self-seeking individuals, with the aim of renewing our hospitals, schools, roads and rails and other public enterprises.

Most of these included extraordinarily large repayment amounts over equally long repayment terms. One such lasts until 2035. Your article (Yorkshire Post, September 25) on the crisis in Yorkshire’s NHS may be attributed to deals such as these. For all public works, over the next 30 years or so, taxpayers are committed to paying a total of over £230bn (and rising). On top of all the other commitments of the Government, we cannot afford such payments.

The Government should stop sitting on its hands, get a grip and declare a war-time situation (soldiers still being killed) and apply a moratorium on all such outrageous debts.

The lawyers, who also bear some of the blame, could then sort out who pays whom when the country is back in the black again in, say, 20 years?

From; Tom Howley, Marston Way, Wetherby.

GORDON Lawrence (‘Thatcher saved us from rampaging dinosaurs’, Yorkshire Post, September 22) assumes that I am a socialist. I assume that he is a capitalist. I respected Mother Teresa, of Calcutta, who spent a lifetime in the service of the sick and the poor. I respect Desmond Tutu who suffered imprisonment for his defence of the under-privileged and disadvantaged.

Who does Mr Lawrence respect? I suggest that he admires banker Fred Goodwin, one of the architects of the financial folly which brought the country to its knees. I suggest that he admires banker Bob Diamond, forced to resign over the Libor scandal.

While the majority suffer the affects of the foolishness of the Thatcher decision to deregulate the financial sector and ‘liberate’ the bankers to give them a free rein to wheel and deal with our savings and pensions, Goodwin retires with a healthy pension and a life of comfort, while Diamond is paid-off ‘in accordance with his contract’.

Mrs Thatcher said that ‘there is no such thing as society’; she believed in the law of the jungle where the strong survive and the weak perish.

From: J Hutchinson, Kirkbymoorside, York.

WE are told that workers on low wages may be expected to pay a small amount towards a pension so as to get used to contributing towards retirement.

Perhaps the same ethos should be considered towards benefit claimants whose incomes including rent, council tax, dental treatment, cash etc. equals or exceeds that of a worker who is expected to pay tax and National Insurance. Deducting these payments from benefits should not be difficult as surely one department knows the full amount paid to claimants. It is then just a case of taking the place of an employer, making the calculations and deducting the taxes due.

Surely not even the churches can object to this idea as it 
levels the playing field 
between the worker and the unemployed at a time when the country is struggling financially and cannot continue to accommodate the ‘my rights’ attitude with no personal responsibility.

From: Malcolm Naylor, Otley.

BY increasing its top rate income tax to 75 per cent, France is demonstrating how a socialist government should distribute the pain of the credit crunch. In contrast to this, the Labour party’s promise to restore the high tax rate from 45 to 50 per cent is pathetic.

Can France lead the fight against inequality and will the British Labour party support them? Capitalism ignores national boundaries. Socialism must do the same.