Laughing at inept MPs wins my vote

His theme (Perspective, 14 December), that unelected, independent regulators have “usurped powers that belong to politicians”, must surely have produced a cynical smile to many.

He cannot possibly imagine, even in his wildest dreams, that the general public shares his opinion of the superiority of politicians over intelligent and experienced people appointed to act as regulators of various organisations.

Surely, he cannot consider that the general public has anything but the lowest respect for MPs, can he? He must have intended to make us all laugh.

Considering how MPs have brought the UK down to its present lowly economic state, and still continue to think that they have the right to exercise control over UK citizens, as well as tell other countries how to behave, I cannot resist reminding folk that when the perspicuous Indian politician Mahatma Gandhi got off a liner, on arriving at Southampton, after the Second World War, and a journalist asked him what he thought of Western civilisation, he replied: “I think it would be a very good idea”.

TELFORD MOORE

Grangehill Drive

Monifieth, Angus

Alan McKinney (Letters, 14 December) provides us with an authoritative account of the circumstances presided over by Gordon Brown as Chancellor and Prime Minister that led to the economic mess that the coalition has been left to clear up.

However, as I recall it, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was made responsible for the meeting of the government’s inflation target – the manipulation of interest rates was the tool for that.

If interest rates are artificially low, the large volume of cheap credit could be expected to create higher prices, but as the high streets were awash with consumer goods of foreign manufacture, prices did not rise, so interest rates remained relatively static, and the Treasury coffers filled up with tax proceeds from the additional sales, and that created a record balance of trade deficits.

The banks ran out of money. That, plus their opportunism, and executives without formal banking qualifications being at the helm in many cases, meant it was inevitable that a crash would emerge.

With credit used up, but still having to be repaid, current growth in the economy has been inhibited. In effect, the Labour government, over its 13 years in power, had purloined growth opportunities that would otherwise have been available now.

Where Labour has not been given sufficient credit is in the cost of housing – that rocketed under its regime.

That was not covered in the MPC remit, and Sir Mervyn King was on record early in his term as governor as regretting his impotence on that. And Labour stood back and watched as house prices rose exponentially, far beyond the level of buyers’ salary potential.

These issues are not referred to adequately by their opposing parties, and that enables Labour to remain in denial about its responsibility for our present dilemma.

Douglas R Mayer

Thomson Crescent Currie, Midlothian

It comes as no surprise that the jobless total has risen to a 17-year high of 2.64 million (your report, 15 December). The more shocking aspect is that young people made up nearly half that figure.

The high unemployment is a direct consequence of the coalition’s slash and burn cuts policy within the public sector.

While David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne were decimating the public sector with massive job cuts, they assured us that the private sector would come in and replace the jobs they had cut.

Of course a first-year economics student could see this claim was hogwash. Companies do not create jobs during a period of reduced consumer demand. This was another Tory lie to justify their ideological opposition to the public sector.

It was Cameron’s heroine Thatcher who sent millions of highly skilled manufacturing jobs abroad in the 1980s, never to be seen again.

Another effect of the Tory ideological cuts to education is that increasing numbers of students are turning to the sex industry.

They are being forced to work as strippers, escorts and prostitutes to fund their education, thanks to the Tories’ introduction of market-based tuition fees and cuts to grants.

Tory greed has left a whole generation of young people without hope and then they wonder why riots occur.

Alan Hinnrichs

Gillespie Terrace

Dundee