“@ Jamie

Yes, I do hold the banks responsible for their behaviour - each decision along this disasterous road was taken by a person, or groups of people, any one of whom could have said 'Wait a minute...' - the same as I do with individuals who overextended themselves (though in fairness many people had little choice due to wage stagflation and reducing social mobility).

Governments since the 1970's have been held in thrall to the money markets, to the detriment of the electorate that they are supposed to work for - so they share some of the blame, but I am afraid most must sit with the money markets themselves, and the credit-rating agencies which signed off the debts as triple-A (which has nothing to do with governments, so your reference to 'governments and their rating agencies' seems a little confused). Did you see the reports this week about Standard & Poor admitting they didn't bother correctly pricing the CDO-risks because they knew taxpayers would ultimately bail out the system? We need look no further for our (sub-)prime culprits.

And this: 'A government can no more regulate taxes than it can regulate drugs or sunlight' is a nonsense - my monthly PAYE deduction tells us that much - it is the opaque nature of international tax-haven-using finance that makes it difficult, but not impossible.”

“I was stuck in work for a hour and 15 minutes yesterday as the police would'nt let any one out, by the way I wark in the uni.there were'nt mant actual students causing all the problems it was all the other people who decided to join the protest just to cause chaos which they managed to do in a big way. the people who decided to start throwing rubbish around from the skips were just being infantile and really need to grow up and learn to get thier own lives sorted out instead causing us tax payers more money with this stupidity. We do need people to keep coming to the uni or slowly and surely we would lose it competely.”

“Ben,
As we all know, a bank will attempt to grow by aquisition, new markets and other means with the ultimate aim of becoming a monopoly in any given market. As we also all know, Tories and Socialists alike, that such moves are detrimental to the greater good.

Can I ask who you think is responsible for regulating the financial sectors avarice? Certainly not the banks themselves?

Can I ask you who you think is responsible for stamping on irresponsible asset bubbles caused by tsunamis of cheap money?

The banks gluttony was only matched by public appetite for debt and while I don't agree that they anyone be bailed out, the banks can't be accused of acting in a fashion that we didn't expect.

There are two groups responsible for this.

1, government and their regulatory bodys that signed of risky debt as triple A and allowed the banks most mercentile instincts to survive

2, the borrowers themselves for taking on such irresponsible personal debt on the advice of their moneylenders rather than their own calculations.

Incedentally, there's no point chasing the ghost of declared taxes. A government can no more regulate taxes than it can regulate drugs or sunlight. The moral arguments are moot. .”

“@ Dan, South Glos:

¿By definition, avoidance is legal.¿

Ah, apologies Dan ¿ I thought we were discussing substance not semantics. It is funny, however, that you seem to think that tax avoidance isn¿t a problem in this country *when this very week* ¿...the 15 biggest banks operating in the U.K. have adopted a government code of practice on reducing tax avoidance...¿ in an attempt to head off legislation to curb their excesses (Bloomberg 30/11/10).

¿Bad legislation is the cause of loopholes and it isn't the fault of the HNW individual or company that they exist. Why shouldn't they be exploited if legal?¿

Poorly drafted legislation exists in most walks of life ¿ but finance is the only one which has tens of thousands of highly paid consultants, lawyers and accountants whose full-time job is to try and exploit the legislation in order to defeat the will of parliament to the detriment of wider society. By definition a loophole doesn¿t exist until someone tries to take advantage of it for their own financial gain.

¿Not quite - avoidance strategies need to be declared upfront to HMRC now.¿

Yes ¿ and how many hundreds of complex new schemes are being put forward each year? And why has the government sacked 400 tax inspectors whose job it was to assess these schemes?

¿'Tax avoidance just increases the burden on the rest of us - if everyone paid their fair share there would be no need for any of the cuts.'

That isn't true I'm afraid.¿

You seem to be the only person in the country who doesn¿t think there is a tax gap between what should be being collected and what is actually being collected ¿ even the Chancellor accepts it exists.

¿The whole "bankers/tax avoiders are evil and everything is their fault" parroted by politicians is to deflect attention away from themselves. If you want to get the real culprit then head over to Fife and bang on Gordon Brown's door... blahblahblah¿

You are right ¿ the only reason that the UK economy is in trouble is because of Brown, and no other developed nation fell into a recession caused by the incompetence/venality of the banks and credit rating agencies.

Oh, wait a minute - that just isn¿t true.
I disagree with huge amounts of what Labour did over the last decade (and never voted for them), but to pretend that a global recession is one man¿s fault is myopic in the extreme.

¿At least the coalition government have a credible plan to do something about it.¿

Yes, because Ireland shows us how successful cutting huge amounts of public spending will be in this situation. And if they have a credible plan why have the Government cancelled the ¿Growth¿ White Paper they were supposed to be releasing this month? (¿The coalition¿s attempts to set out a detailed plan for boosting Britain¿s growth before the year is out has been quietly dropped after George Osborne, the chancellor, decided he needed more time to draw up a coherent strategy. Aides admitted the government did not have enough serious content to warrant a white paper¿ (FT, 21/11/10).

Maybe it¿s because they have no real ideas other than a discredited Chicago-school ideology which is predicated on the assumption that private wealth is always better than public service ¿ the thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.”

“I want to protest against the protesters can we have some names and addresses please. Nice friendly protest outside their parents house a few broken windows on cars they own and paint over house. they might decide to sort their hooligan kids out then.”