Letters: When will the powerful pay their dues?

WHILE we were all expecting gloomy news from the Chancellor (your report, 30 November), the decision to allow only a future 1 per cent pay rise for many millions of public employees already suffering a pay freeze will be poorly received, especially with no mention of any major tax increases for the rich bankers who caused all our problems and who will of course be getting further obscene pay and bonuses over the next few years.

When will our government realise that the people of the UK want these very people to pay their dues through higher taxation for the damage they have done and for the way they are still demanding a standard of living way beyond our country’s means and being denied to the millions of others who contribute more to our country in fairness, commitment and loyalty.

It is time that David Cameron and his team realised how strongly the public still feel about bankers and the gentle way government treats them.

As each year passes with no action against the avarice of the financial sector, the Tories will keep being accused of being the party of the rich and powerful.

Iain J McConnell

Gifford

East Lothian

The Chancellor, in his autumn statement, gave us all a lesson in self-destruction.

From 2013, public sector pay rises will be capped at 1 per cent. Public sector job losses, forecast at 400,000 by 2016, were reviewed on Tuesday to 710,000 by 2017.

Those announcements on the eve of the largest revolt by public sector workers indicate that George Osborne is surely in a world of his own, oblivious to the chaos that will ensue as a result.

If ever the public sector unions needed ammunition for its argument, Mr Osborne came to its rescue.

Catriona C Clark

Hawthorn Drive

Banknock, Falkirk

AMONG other things, one has to ask how desperate is the state of the UK’s finances and how frantically concerned the Westminster Treasury when Mr Osborne can offer, never mind afford, £50 million for a cross-Border sleeper train service that isn’t any longer nationalised and publicly owned?

Or is this maybe the reason, and that were it nationalised its public service staff would anyway be put under the same financial squeeze as other public service employees. Catch a £50m offer if it was in the public sector? Some chance!

Ian Johnstone

Forman Drive

Peterhead

Following the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s decision to put new money into capital expenditure projects, the Scottish Government has the perfect opportunity to reverse the 34 per cent cut in the housing budget and stimulate jobs in the construction industry.

And, coming just one day after statistics showed a 36 per cent slump in new-start socially-rented house building, this extra money should be used by the Scottish Government to plug the gaping funding gap and invest in desperately needed socially rented housing.

Ministers need to ensure that as much of this money as possible finds its way towards shovel-ready projects that can get going immediately – providing more jobs and more homes.

Graeme Brown

Shelter Scotland

South Charlotte Street

Edinburgh

Am I becoming a conspiracy freak or is the West gradually becoming an oligarchy? A decade ago the word was almost unknown, but with debt and the banking lobby dominating our legislatures the future for democracy is looking pretty bleak.

Unemployment, cutbacks and bank bail-outs will never resolve the escalating public debt problem. Nor is it intended they should. This system works just the way it is designed to work: for the benefit of its beneficiaries.

Let us not confuse this with “fiscal independence” and taxation – it has little or nothing to do with it – it is monetary policy.

There are other monetary policies, of course there are, but without the political will to change.

Ronnie Morrison

Colquhoun Street

Helensburgh