We need the Banks to Invest in Britain
August 19, 2009 12:00 AM
In Stockport Express
In Stockport Express
Stockport isn't in the same league as London as a world financial centre, but the impact of the banking melt-down hits us just as hard. Jobs are being lost, and homes repossessed in our town every week. Local businesses are starved of working capital, and the housing market has folded.
It wasn't necessary, and it could have been avoided. Month after month beforehand Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor, warned the Government of the risks - only to be dismissed as a crank not just by Labour, but by the Conservatives too. Both were too close to the greedy bonus-grabbers at the top of the banking world to listen to common sense.
There are still senior Tory MPs who have very lucrative part-time jobs with banks themselves.
So no wonder that a year later they are hoping we have all forgotten how it happened. In the banks it is the junior staff who face the cuts, whilst the bosses are still raking in the bonuses. In Whitehall the Government won't even make the banks that you and I have spent billions buying do the job that's needed. Instead it's more bonuses all round, and carry on carrying on.
Right the way through the last six years only the Liberal Democrats' Vince Cable has had the guts to speak out about the risks the bankers were taking, not just with their own banks, but with the jobs and lives of ordinary people.
It is hardly a surprise that now only the Liberal Democrats are standing firm and saying the banks' dodgy casino culture must end, and investment in Britain must be their first priority. In contrast Labour is scared to do what they know is right, and the Conservatives - well, it's their friends we are talking about, isn't it?
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