Dear Sir,

After the bursting of the credit bubble in August, 2007 Alastair Darling repeatedly assured us that Britain’s ‘economic fundamentals’ were sound. But now we are now on the brink of a full-blown recession...

We've had years of the government saying 'spend, spend, spend'. And we have re-financed mortgages, maxed out on credit cards, invested in buy-to-lets, shopped for 4x4s, handbags and sports trainers. But as we did this, so we have burned more finite supplies of oil and coal. And as we burned up these precious, scarce resources, as we stripped more forests, farmed more land, fished more fish, so the earth has grown more dangerously warm and less diverse.

Somehow, something, somewhere has give. These old ideas - that we could live forever on borrowed money and that there are no limits to the earth’s resources – are a series of bubbles that are now bursting.

But what is the way forward? We need a Green New Deal based on increased regulation of the finance sector, so that finance once again becomes servant to the economy. As in the New Deal era of the 1930s, we need low interest rates and minimal tax evasion if we are to finance the massive investment needed for a multi-billion pound crash programme to make every building in the country a power station, while maximising the UK’s use of small and large-scale renewables. Finally we need to mobilise a carbon army of green-collar workers to implement this programme. For the full Green New Deal report co-authored by Green MEP for the South East Caroline Lucas see the website: www.neweconomics.org.

It is only such a programme that could give the people of Britain hope; that could help Britain survive this crisis, and enable our citizens to live better, more happily, and within the limits of our ecological budgets.

Your sincerely,

Rob White Green PPC Reading East
www.readinggreenparty.ork.uk

8 Mandela Court, Orts Road, Reading, RG1 3JG.