SIR – Many readers of the Worcester News are saddened by the news of the death of Margaret Thatcher.

It is true that she was a person who had a great impact on the life of the nation.

Among the huge amount of praise for her in the Press I would like to point out something that seems to have been overlooked.

The present economic crisis we find ourselves in has its roots in her leadership.

It was her government, under her pressure, that started to lift the controls on the banks.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown carried on lifting the remaining controls.

Thatcher’s policy was based on the belief that we could earn our living as a country through the finance industry and that manufacturing could go to the wall.

Making money out of lending each other money is no way to run an economy.

It is like earning our money for cleaning each others’ windows.

Remove the controls on the banks and you end up where we are now.

The politicians, the chosen ones who have much intelligence and not much common sense, allowed this to happen.

“Greed is good” and “there is no such thing as society”

were the catchphrases of those days.

Today’s politicians are now trying, not very successfully, to control the banks even though we own most of them.

TERRY JAMES

Pershore