What the banks need is a massive injection of capital and surely this will only come from attracting investment. Reducing interest rates to borrowers (who still cannot borrow) makes virtually no difference in the grand scheme of things, but does manage to starve the banks of any last chance of attracting investment cash!

Interest rate rises, whilst wholly unacceptable to borrowers, would surely tempt people onto the high street to part with their hard-earned cash. This would relieve the situation as delevering is desperately needed to get the funds flowing again. A hike in rates would also help to stem the tide of loan applications. It is totally impossible to “Borrow your way out of debt.”

Home-owners would need to be protected from rate rises in order to preserve their homes, but if the Government want to bail anyone out, it should be these people, possibly by way of shared ownership. It’s nice to own your own home, but not a God given right and for many people now, totally unattainable. If you think you own your home and it’s on a mortgage, just try missing a few payments to see who really owns it!

Tough times call for tough measures and whatever the Government do it will be unpopular with a percentage of the population. What they need to do is formulate a proper strategy to ease us out of the crisis without so much reliance on the global markets and being subjected to the vagaries of the same. We have the capability to be a lot more self-sufficient than we currently are and to become the great innovative, technology driven, world beating nation we once were.

Out of great difficulty comes great opportunity. If we grasp the nettle now and work together as a unified movement to rebuild our economy on sound financial principles that will allow sustainable and realistic growth based on wealth, not debt