IN reply to Brian Derbyshire (The Bolton News, September 1).

What people are concerned about are more recent times, but to go back in history, it was the Thatcher government which removed any regulation of the banking, and financial sector, and to its shame the last Labour government did not see fit to reintroduce regulation.

This in turn allowed greedy bankers to gamble with our money, unchecked and without fear of government intervention, which resulted in our tax-payers’ money being used to bail out the banks.

Both Labour, and Conservative governments, thought they could run an economy based purely on the financial sector, while allowing large sections of our manufacturing, our wealth creating sector, to go to the wall.

Both Tory and Labour conducted a love affair with the city of London, which proved to be a short term and short sighted policy.

The result is we the British public are expected to pay for greedy bankers and successive governments’ mistakes, in cuts to vital services, including the police and armed forces. The resulting massive job losses will make our streets less safe, and our internal security put at risk.

The most vulnerable, the sick, elderly, and disabled, will be most affected. Job losses will damage our local economies.

This dreadful Con-Dem government must not be allowed to destroy, what we in a civilised society have won over years of struggle. Decency must prevail, and cuts be resisted. The Government must stop stalling, and tackle the bankers, and their bonuses. Make them and the super-rich pay their fair share in taxes, and close down tax-loop holes, and stop tax evasion, and avoidance, by the super-rich, and close down their tax havens. This is what the Green Party says.

Alan Johnson Bolton Green Party