SOUTH DORSET CANDIDATE BLAMES CONSERVATIVES FOR RECESSION

SOUTH DORSET CANDIDATE BLAMES FREEMARKET CONSERVATIVISM FOR RECESSION
In an interview with the Guardian the party's Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, blamed the Conservatives for the economic downturn and said the current leadership had been caught unawares by the crisis. He said: "They didn't anticipate it. Many of the problems we have originate from the Thatcher years. If you take for example the way in which they demutualised building societies, which became banks, that was a real Thatcher policy and those institutions have been at the heart of the crisis of irresponsible lending."
Cable blamed the Conservatives for arguing "unremittingly" for the lifting of effective banking regulation. He also said that in the US rightwing politicians took a much more straightforward approach. "John McCain is saying just get on and nationalise the banks. You have to do it for pragmatic reasons. The Tories here don't seem to have grasped that.
I can only agree ! The kind of mass consumer culture that we have in this country & all of the evils it brings with it, whether overspending & resultant debt or the emphasis on material goods as the only form of self worth or happiness, is all the result of the massive deregulation brought about by the Conservatives in the 1980s.
This is something I feel really strongly about having worked for 14 years in the NHS as a Counsellor. Again & again I’ve seen families struggling with debt brought about by irresponsible lending & people whose sense of value in life is not about themselves but about what they own. It’s had a huge impact on our children & what they think about themselves & it’s a dangerous legacy for the future
When the Conservatives bemoan the so called ‘broken society’ & criticise the lack of responsibility taken by families for their own, they should look at themselves. The ‘broken society’ is the result of the rampant consumerism unleashed in the 1980s & 90s, where all of the bonds that had held society together were broken apart by Margaret Thatcher & the only thing offered to fill the gap was the pursuit of materialism. We are facing the truth now: the only people who have really benefited from this are the wealthy - & the gap between the richest & the poorest in this country is wider now, even after a Labour government than it was in the 1970s.