Letter to the Financial Times: What Galbraith warned about

10.37.00am GMT Tue 10th Nov 2009

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have brought the UK to a state where bankers are permitted to freeload with support from taxpayers while enjoying bumper bonuses, but if the same taxpayers want to check up on important Supreme Court judgments - perhaps on the obligations of bankers - they have to pay £350 for the privilege (report, November 9). Elsewhere it is also reported that British citizens who were forced into marriage abroad will be obliged to pay the costs of repatriation. This is to be enforced by the UK consulate withholding their passport, mimicking the behaviour of traffickers or the oppressive family itself.

Never has Galbraith's warning of "private affluence and public squalor" seemed so apposite as in 21st century Britain.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Ludford

(Published in The Financial Times on 10 November 2009.)