AS you would expect from a Tory councillor, Brian Gordon blames all the country’s current economic difficulties on the previous Labour governments (LT, January 5).

There’s no surprise about that, but it is surprising that, nowhere in his brief outline of recent financial history, does he mention the role of the bankers.

These are the people who, through irresponsible lending policies and a culture of sky-high bonuses, brought a number of high-street banks to their knees and forced the Labour government to spend billions of pounds to prevent their complete collapse and the loss of many people’s savings.

This expenditure is recognised by most economists as playing a major part in the current debt crisis but, for Coun Gordon, it doesn’t even rate a mention.

There’s a reason for this surprising omission – the Tories have set their sights on scrapping many of the improvements in public provision brought in by Labour (they call it ‘rolling back the state’) and it is convenient to blame the current economic problems on public sector spending to disguise a set of political choices being made by the coalition government.

Mentioning the irresponsibility of the bankers would simply get in the way of a good story.

So, an economic crisis caused by the profligacy of the banks and solved by attacking the living standards of ordinary people and the mass sacking of public sector workers – that’s fairness, ConDem style.

PHIL RILEY, Secretary Blackburn Labour Party.