Don’t let the spivs destroy Britain

MILLIONS of British families are facing the destruction of their livelihoods as the nation’s economy teeters on the brink of catastrophe, brought low by the greed and stupidity of spivs in high finance.

BROWN More concerned with saving his own neck than tackling the economic emergency BROWN: More concerned with saving his own neck than tackling the economic emergency

There is mounting anger in Middle Britain at the excesses of the City of London where huge fortunes have been made by bankers on the back of reckless gambles with the life savings of small investors. [>

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Today the Daily Express warns that this financial merry-go-round is destroying Britain. Unless a new era of financial sanity is ushered in, putting the high-rollers on a short leash and penalising them for their avarice, the free enterprise economics which brought prosperity to the Western world will be doomed. [>

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On an extraordinary day of financial turbulence yesterday, the FTSE 100 index dipped below 5000, wiping tens of billions off the value of shares. Amid rumours of an orchestrated assault on it by speculators, shares in Halifax Bank of Scotland, Britainís biggest mortgage lender, plunged by 40 per cent at one point, following similar falls on Monday. [>

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The Bank of England was forced to pump £20billion into the financial system but saw the demand for the cash oversubscribed by three times as banks faced up to the folly of their excessive lending. Yet, incredibly, it was revealed that bosses at Merrill Lynch are in line for multi-million-pound bonuses despite overseeing the financial giantís demise. [>

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And angry motoring groups pointed out that petrol and diesel prices had come down by just one per cent in a month, despite a 17 per cent fall in the wholesale costs of the giant oil companies and a drop in crude prices to $92 from a peak of $147 earlier in the summer. [>

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Grim warnings of the disastrous impact the financial meltdown will have on jobs and incomes in Britain mounted. The TUC predicted the number of long-term unemployed could double to 700,000 by the end of 2009. Meanwhile, inflation hit 4.7 per cent with food prices rising to a 28-year high. [>

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But the Prime Minister Gordon Brown seemed more concerned with saving his own neck than tackling the economic emergency which was unfolding and his Chancellor Alistair Darling has been written off already as hopeless. [>

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Throughout the 20th century, free market capitalism proved itself to be the best economic system for delivering higher living standards. The Cold War was won for the West as much because of communismís palpable failure to secure prosperity as its hostility to freedom. [>

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While people behind the Iron Curtain suffered permanent impoverishment, free markets and a free society went hand-in-hand in the West and material gains were available to anyone prepared to work hard. [>

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But in the past few years that unbeatable economic recipe has gone awry. Most of the benefits of capitalism have been enjoyed by an ever-diminishing number of people in finance houses and corporate boardrooms. [>

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Currently, there are many examples of what was once termed ìthe unacceptable face of capitalismî. As well as the wrecking tactics of speculators, bankers and oil barons, ordinary families are having to put up with the antics of domestic power firms preparing to raise charges yet again so that consumers bear the cost of the Governmentís energy ìrescue packageî for the poor. [>

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The lives of hard-working people in Britain are increasingly blighted by a feckless underclass whose indolence they are forced to bankroll through the tax and benefits system and a ruthless overclass which siphons off billions. [>

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Unless action is taken to stop all these spivs in their tracks, decent people will lose faith in the dynamism of free enterprise and the moral imperative of striving for self-reliance. [>

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It is a horrible thought but the greed of a few bankers and corporate fat cats could hand an undeserved lifeline to the failed creed of State socialism. It must not be allowed to happen. [>

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