TONY TAYLOR (Letters, September 18) follows many right-wing commentators in blaming the current recession on public spending by the last Labour government.

Repeated telling does not, however, make a story true.

The financial crisis of 2007-8 was caused fair and square by greedy banks – the same banks which, having accepted billions of taxpayers’ cash to bail them out, are still paying their bosses obscene salaries and bonuses.

Had it not been for the actions of the Labour government under Gordon Brown, RBS and Lloyds would have gone bust and the cash machines would have dried up, with incalculable effects on the economy.

It is this multi-million pound corporate welfare scheme which we are now all paying for though the Coalition’s austerity policies – which, in addition to their ruinous social costs, have dragged the economy back and delayed, not assisted recovery.

If the Blair and Brown governments can be criticised in this context, it is for having presided over a regime of excessively lax bank regulation which helped stoke up pressure for the eventual bust. In this policy, however, they were cheered on at the time by Conservatives urging yet more deregulation.

All things considered, an extended period of humility from Conservative apologists would now be very welcome.

Mark Gladwin, Huntington Road, York.