ONCE again Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp has given us an excellent article, on a topic which is very relevant to current circumstances (10 years on from the crash that broke the banks, September 15). Gordon has touched on what I would consider to be central to all the big issues confronting us here in Scotland today. If, as Gordon suggests, and I believe is clear, we are about to see another financial crisis, then we need to think very seriously about it.

He touches at the heart of the problem when he talks about allowing “banks to create new money”. Money supply has been historically a government or “Crown” prerogative, not something available to private banks, until relatively recently when neo-classical (or neo-liberal) ideology became dominant in our society.

Gordon is absolutely right that we are heading directly for another financial crisis, because the causes of the last one are still there and being applied. The next crisis will be more devastating because we have not yet recovered from the last one, and governments do not have the resources to bail the banks out again.

It is an important thing for people to recognise when there is a flaw in the system, but when you have discovered this the intelligent thing to do is to put it right so that it does not happen again. If Gordon looks deeper into this problem I’m sure he will come to the same conclusion as an increasing number of us have come to, which is that it is the neo-classical “light-touch” banking linked to the fractional-reserve banking system which is at the core of this problem.

Now an independent Scotland which could set up its own independent banking system could and should set up a full-reserve Scottish domestic currency with money supply solely in the control of a Scottish central bank, and this would ensure the “phantom money” which he refers to – without naming it as such – would not be in the system.

In other words, there is an answer to this grave problem which Gordon is correctly identifying which would be open to an independent Scotland if it was prepared to take the radical steps required to address the problem, not just to warn that it is coming and will hit us hard.

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

READ MORE: Ten years on from the crash that broke the banks – could it happen again?​

WHEN Gordon Brown talks about financial crises, it’s like Tony Blair talking about world peace (Brown fears new financial crisis in a ‘leaderless’ world, September 14). Have they no shame?

Brown says “we are in danger of sleepwalking into a future crisis”. In the run-up to the last financial crisis he repeatedly boasted that under his leadership there would be no return to boom and bust.

After the crisis struck in 2008, his Chancellor Alastair Darling announced a “temporary fiscal stimulus” amounting to 1% of UK GDP. The US response was worth 4% of its GDP.

Why was the UK stimulus so feeble? Because when he was Chancellor Gordon Brown had maxed out on the UK’s credit card, and the UK Government couldn’t borrow any more money.

David Simpson
Dunbar

READ MORE: Gordon Brown fears new financial crisis in ‘leaderless’ world​

AM I the only person who cannot understand why breaking election law shouldn’t carry a much greater penalty than simply a monetary fine – even invalidating a result? The news that the Leave campaign seriously overspent and illegally circumvented rules should be having a much bigger impact than it appears to be having (Election watchdog allowed Vote Leave to break spending laws, September 15).

If it is such a small deal as to only warrant a slap on the wrist and a modest fine, why was the law put in place at all?

Surely the fact that law-makers considered this to be so important a matter that it needed legislation to stop it happening must mean that they understood over-spending affects the result. If it doesn’t have an impact, why bother legislating against it?

Logically, then, the result cannot be considered a true reflection of the views of the electorate and as such should be at the very least discounted. Arguably, if the vote produced an overwhelming majority, there would be a case that this transgression did not affect the outcome. But of course this was not the case here.

The same comment can be made about overspending by the Conservative and Labour parties and the “dark money” scandal that Ruth Davidson refuses to talk about. And here, perhaps, is the answer.

If the Westminster parties were to take appropriate action they probably fear that it would rebound on their own malfeasance. What a grubby system it is.

David Cairns
Finavon

READ MORE: Election watchdog 'misunderstood' EU election spending rules​

WHY do so many people seem not to understand the crucial difference between a second vote about Brexit and the occasions when there has been a second vote about an EU matter?

In the latter case, when governments did not get the answer they wanted they, those same governments, held a second vote.

In the case of Brexit, it is the voters, not the government or political leaders, who are demanding a second vote, now that they know what is involved and feel they have the right in a democracy to change their mind, just as they can do at every other election.

P Davidson
Falkirk

I do not like you Mrs May
The reasons why I cannot say.
But they grow stronger day by day
I do not like you, Mrs May.

With apologies to Marcus Valerius Martialis (38-102 AD).

Peter Craigie
Edinburgh