Once, Twice, Three Times a Mandy

Dear Editor, Oh despair! Is Gordon Brown mad? Peter Mandelson represents all that is wrong with the Labour Party and as a consequence the British economy today. He is the architect of the hubris that lead Labour to swallow the Thatcherite mantra of deregulation and liberalisation regardless of its consequences. Slavish support for the so called "wealth creators" who have turned out to be no more that spivs and hucksters. We are not choosing to shut down financial globalisation as he puts it (Guardian 3/10/08). It is closing down because it was built on sand. When I worked to bring business and Labour together for a better understanding of one another before the 1997 election I said that Labour had gone from being anti-business to pro-business without an intervening period of understanding. How true that has turned out to be. Now Brown is creating new mega banks from the collapse of the unregulated secondary banking system. We are moving from a
position in which we had Banks that we could not afford to let fail to Banks we will not be able to afford to save. This crisis has only just begun and the last thing we need are new Labour cliches about globalisation is good for you when all that has happened is that with the conivance of governments like the one here in Britain international businesses have been allowed to escape any effective regulation.

Letter to the Guardian Published October 4th 2008