Yesterday saw the FTSE 100 sustain its biggest percentage fall in a single day since ‘Black Monday’ in 1987.
Although the banking crisis is having global repercussions, it has raised questions in our own country about blind faith in markets. Just as in the Thatcher era, the Conservatives won’t solve the problems of another Labour economic legacy.
Gideon Rachman writes at the Financial Times: Conservatism overshoots its limit.
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It is clear that the Thatcher-Reagan consensus, which has been the dominant idea in British politics for nearly thirty years, has reached the end of the road.
We are now experiencing this ideology’s ‘winter of discontent’ (just as the previous dominant consensus, Butskellism, ended in 1979).
At previous historic forks in the road, there was urgent compelling argument about which direction society should take. This time, leading politicians in all the main parties seem reluctant to break ranks.
Matthew Parris was very good on this subject earlier this year (Times, 22 March): http://tinyurl.com/47×392
Why are the Liberal Democrats not seizing the moment? Are our MPs afraid of attacking ‘casino capitalism’ and a blind faith in markets in case Paul Marshall won’t like it?