THERE is some truth in what earlier contributors have said. There has certainly been a culture of debt and obscene bonuses in the City.

Labour, however, was not the root cause, despite its willingness to buy into a neo-liberal agenda of profit before people.

In 2009 and 2010 in collaboration with the International Economics for Ecology conference, my late colleague delivered two presentations on the economic crisis and a study guide to its origins.

The US economy transitioned from hard-asset based (gold, silver) in 1971 to Fed paper notes written solely against the 'good faith and credit' of US citizens.  

New money was simply imagined into existence with no finite anchor.

The US government responded with quantitative easing as stated in the 2009 presentation – 'so, we invented three trillion dollars, lent it to ourselves, and are trying to salvage a broken system so far by re-establishing the broken system with imaginary money.'

Within days, UK government followed suit with £375 million of quantitative easing to rescue the banks who had imagined the money in the first place, to avoid a bank run.

Where Labour failed is in taking appropriate action to lessen the impact – reflected today in payday lenders, food banks and zero hours contracts and absence of a living wage.

– Jeff Mowatt, Parkend.