Foot's strategy could have averted bank crisis

THE financial crisis could have been avoided if Michael Foot's call to nationalise the banks had been heeded, the MP representing his former constituency has claimed.

The 1983 Labour manifesto – derided as the "longest suicide note in history" – would have avoided the excesses which led to the current banking crisis, independent MP Dai Davies said in a Commons tribute to Mr Foot, who died on Wednesday aged 96.

Mr Davies hailed former Labour leader Mr Foot as "one of the world's greatest socialists" and claimed the country "would have been much better served" if his party had won the 1983 general election.

The left-wing manifesto on which Labour campaigned in that contest consigned the party to its worst defeat in 60 years as Margaret Thatcher's Tories were returned to power.

Mr Davies, who represents Blaenau Gwent where Mr Foot was MP until 1992, said the 1983 manifesto was "prescient and before its time in calling for the nationalisation of the banks".

In a Commons motion he states that had the "sensible strategy" been supported "then the current economic crisis, arising from reckless behaviour of senior bankers, could have been avoided".