Wednesday's Letters: There is no genuine reason to butcher the public sector

Labour substantially increased public expenditure. Inevitably, mistakes were made along the way: the Blair Government became wedded to reforming public services with private sector involvement; private sector partnerships frequently failed to deliver the promised efficiencies or service quality; some reorganisations were poorly evidenced and planned and proved bureaucratically disruptive.

Nonetheless, Labour's investment in the public services delivered real improvements: more frontline staff, shorter hospital waiting times, smaller class sizes – the list goes on. Indeed, Labour's spending plans made such good sense that just two years ago David Cameron was still committed to matching them.

It was not public spending, but a crisis in the private sector – the implosion of the banks in the US, the UK and elsewhere – which made a mess of the national balance sheet. The fiscal deficit is a direct result of the huge cost of the bank bailout, the loss of tax revenue from the deep recession which ensued and the cost of measures needed to bolster the economy through it.

New Labour wasn't blameless in this. It fell under the spell of the

City and was too ready to accede to its demands for "light-touch" regulation. But they were not alone – the Tories' only gripe with Labour's regulation of the financial sector was that there was too much of it.

Too much faith was placed in City promises of limitless growth. Labour and the Tories failed to spot the property bubble and sky-high

corporate and personal debt in which it was enmeshed.

Most worryingly, for a party of the left, a coterie at the top of New Labour had swallowed the neo-liberal mantra that "greed is good". Rational self-interest is central to free-market economic theory, but greed is altogether uglier and less reasoned. Greed is self-interest run amok. It was greed that brought down the banks.

In 2008, it was only Labour's decisive action to stabilise the banks and stimulate demand through public spending – action copied across the Atlantic and in Europe – that averted a wider economic cataclysm.

We were brought to the current fiscal impasse by some of the highest earners in the land. It was not spending on the public services, the army of mostly low-paid workers who run them, nor on the poor and vulnerable who most depend on them, who were to blame. The coalition should stop hiding behind a lie. It does not have a mandate to

dismantle the public sector.

From: Martin Smith, Bondgate, Selby.

Punish the watchdogs who failed us

From: Paul M Rouse, Main Street, Sutton upon Derwent, York.

MUCH of the Western world is having to suffer because its politicians ran up huge debts to fund expenditure in excess of income, at the same time encouraging the man in the street to do the same. People who could not afford it were encouraged to spend on credit by financial

institutions, whose executives were getting rich out of the debts without any thought to the damage that would cause, including damage to the companies they were employed to manage.

There are supposed to be checks and balances in place to prevent profligate politicians and greedy business people getting everyone in a mess – so what happened? More importantly, how do we make sure it does not happen again?

All we have to do is put in place a system of heavy fines, not to be levied against the perpetrators, but against those who are supposed to keep them in check. In that way, we get the benefits of political zeal, and entrepreneurial spirit, but without the excesses. So, if those who are paid to ensure that governments and businesses behave themselves ignore their responsibilities, they would be severely punished. This should include senior civil servants, select committee members, watchdogs, and non-executive directors.

At the moment, too many of these people are either appointed to their positions by those they are supposed to oversee, or allow themselves to be emasculated by them. If, in the future, they know that ignoring a situation will cost them dear, they will do something about it, and if they are prevented from doing so, they will resign to avoid sanction, and the public will know about it.

Where, for example, were the senior civil servants at the Treasury when Brown and his cohorts were running up an unsustainable debt?

Why didn't the non-executive directors of the bailed out banks see the sub-prime lending gravy train for what it was?

By introducing severe financial penalties for lax watchdogs, we will not only ensure that our interests are protected, but that those who seek to be appointed to such positions do so while fully aware of their responsibilities.

Flight fantastic

From: Mary Sylvester, Fishlake, Doncaster.

WHAT a lovely surprise on to see the archive photograph of Concorde (Yorkshire Post, July 16) after landing at Leeds Bradford Airport on 25 April 1987, showing my husband and I on the front row of the picture.

As we both have our birthdays on the same date in April, we decided to treat each other to this flight on Concorde. What an exhilarating experience it was, everyone cheering as we reached mach 3 and passed through the sound barrier.

The silver service meal and champagne made it perfect. We looked out as we approached the airport and saw the thousands of spectators and cars in fields, lanes and surrounding roads. In addition to the souvenirs we were all given, my husband and I were presented with a bottle of

champagne to continue our celebrations when we returned home. What a

great pity we no longer see Concorde in the air.

Police have cut crime

From: Alexander Ogilvy, East Parade, Heworth, York.

FOR Labour to claim that their policies against crime were successful would seem arrogant, deceitful, misleading and offensive to victims of crime.

Some people suffered years of hell under the previous government. This included repeated attacks of violence, vandalism including stoning and shattering of windows, years of noise disturbance, violent threats and petty thefts. Their local newspapers were full of pages of crimes, including murders, violence and vandalism day after day.

If there is a slight improvement in crime figures after all this (Yorkshire Post, July 16), then perhaps some thanks might be due to the beleaguered, hard-pressed, outnumbered and sometimes misled police for their efforts in trying to trace and bring these hateful miscreants to justice.

Profligate BBC bosses need to tighten their belts

From: MK O'Sullivan, Victoria Street, Allerton Bywater, Castleford.

NOW that the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has his eye on BBC costs and expenses (Yorkshire Post, July 17) and he can "see the licence fee coming down", I hope that he will continue to press his point.

In 2009, the public were shown how MPs regarded taxpayers' money as a bottomless pit to finance their expenses claims. Now it seems that the same, "you pay, we claim" attitude exists within the BBC.

Witness the extremely large travel claims, thousands spent on taxi fares, huge salaries like the 830,000 paid to Thompson and scores of executives earning more than the Prime Minister.

Last year, Carrie Gracie, a BBC news presenter, revealed that her

salary was over 90,000, this when she was asking about the expenses claimed by MPs. I doubt that many of her fellow presenters are paid much less. It would be an interesting exercise to count the number of news presenters on BBC television over a week and to work out what

they cost.

If Mr Hunt is sincere in his stance on BBC costs, I suggest that he recommend that a large number of news presenters be let go. If they don't like it they can seek similar work with Sky or ITV.

Mr Hunt might also look at Radio 5 Live costs and the number of

presenters and suggest that a pruning knife be used here too.

Another example of where BBC costs might be cut is in the number of correspondents abroad, a particular example being in the US. I wonder how many BBC staff were used, and paid, during the 2008 presidential election campaign, all from licence fee money?

I now look forward to further comments from Mr Hunt and BBC reactions.

Don't be so hard on Blair

From: Terry Smith, Sutton Upon Derwent, York.

TREV Bromby's letter (Yorkshire Post, July 16) was little less than a rant full of bile against Tony Blair. Trev seems to think that Blair is the only former PM who receives round the clock security. The fact is all ex-prime ministers receive the same treatment. So when John Major attends his board meetings at the Carlyle Group in his extremely well paid non-executive role, he is also attended by police, whether that meeting is in New York or London.

Then we had the false assertion that Blair declared war on Islam. Was this the same Blair who led the campaign to protect the Muslims of Kosovo? Yes it was. There are many Muslims who see the Taliban, al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein as the real enemies of their people

Fire HQ costs

From: Paul Charity, Hindewood Close, Sheffield

ALTHOUGH Mark Smitherman, South Yorkshire's Chief Fire Officer, is correct that the new headquarters building was funded by the developer of Sheffield's Sevenstone complex (Yorkshire Post, July 17), he failed to mention that the cost of demolishing the perfectly adequate "old" headquarters, just 25 years young, is being borne by the public purse, making the whole deal somewhat less attractive than first presented.

Plane facts

From: G McWilliam.

IN an article on the prowess of our Armed Forces in the Second World War, compared with today, by Malcolm Barker (Yorkshire Post, July 19) a picture appears with the caption : "Action Stations: Fighter crews race for their planes during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940."

But the fact is that this photo shows RAF crews participating in exercises early in 1939, some months before the outbreak of the war.