Letters: We’re all still paying for the financial crash

Don’t blame the banks?

Sir: Kate Andrews struggles to disentangle the causes of the developing cost-of-living crisis (‘Cold truth’, 19 March), with the fallout from Brexit, Covid and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine all vying for responsibility. She forgets the financial crash of 2008, when a few irresponsible banks and building societies dragged this country into a financial abyss. The jury is still out on the effect that the Bank of England’s remedy of quantitative easing has since had on inflation and wealth inequality.

We are all still paying the price for this disaster, as will be the next couple of generations. After 2008, successive governments paid for the bailout of the banks by pulling the plug on the central funding of local authorities which, contrary to popular belief, only ever got barely half of their income from council taxes. It was this that led to the hollowing out of city, county and town halls throughout the UK.

Now, despite ever-increasing rates bills, communities that once had public libraries, swimming pools and playing fields now have filthy streets, potholed roads and, if you’re lucky, fortnightly refuse collection.

Christopher Goulding

Newcastle upon Tyne

Wind up

Sir: Barometer (12 March) states that Britain got 40 per cent of its ‘energy’ from the wind last month. In fact, it got 40 per cent of its electricity from wind. Because electricity is only a quarter of our total energy consumption it therefore means wind only generated 10 per cent of our energy, not 40 per cent. This is important because it potentially misleads people into thinking that wind power is a greater source of energy than it actually is. Likewise, it might discourage people from believing in fracking, because if wind is seen to generate more ‘energy’ than gas (22 per cent in the statistic), people might question why we need any additional gas supply.