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Paying for others’ errors
• AS a member of the Camden Plus Credit Union I deplore the way in which Gordon Brown’s government is charging a levy on credit unions to fund the recent bail-out of the topsy-turvy banking system which he, as chancellor, failed to regulate and indeed encouraged to get out of hand.
Credit unions are set up to provide credit access and other services principally to the neediest people, often those who our grandiose and overweening high street casino-banks would not allow to have, let alone keep, an account.
Credit unions were no part of the banking system failure. Unlike Gordon Brown they did not contribute to it. Their services are more needed than ever in these recessionary times when people in desperate circumstances are even more likely than usual to be driven into the hands of merciless “loan sharks” unless better sources of credit are available.
It is iniquitous that credit unions should be forced to pay a levy for the faults of their vastly wealthier, and sadly too often improvident, rivals.
Credit unions like Camden Plus work on the basis of community spirit, mutual sharing and support. They should not be involved in the levy, first payment of which is, alas, due next Tuesday (September 1).
This is another piece of Gordon Brown’s New Labour grotesquery. I
s it too much to hope that it might still become the subject of yet another of his equally celebrated U-turns?
ROBIN YOUNG
Bedford Court Mansions,
WC1
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