Billions spent on bank bail outs ad not a penny for Farepak victims

Oct 23 2008 West Lothian Courier

CHRISTMAS is almost with us again and once more we are in the grip of financial crisis.

But this time our political masters have come up with unlimited support for those who have lost out in what has become known as The Credit Crunch. Compare this rescue package with the hand washing attitude of our political masters in the Labour Government toward those ordinary folk who had put their Christmas savings in the ill fated Farepak in 2006. Not a single penny was the response from the keepers of the public purse.

These poor unfortunates were left to flounder in panic as their hard-earned cash disappeared just weeks before Christmas.

Nationwide well over 100,000 families lost some £40 million, but there was to be no government multi-million pound bail out for these poor souls.

The supposed socialists in the Labour government conveniently turned their backs on the innocent victims of that collapse.

The only help that was forthcoming in Livingston came from the Livingston Credit Union who bent over backwards to offer some relief to locals and I understand that this was the case throughout the land.

I cannot help but think that the difference this time, apart from scale, is that while most of the Farepak victims were ordinary working class families, now it is the professional and middle classes and the very same politicians who are the victims. I for one will remember these shameful double standards at the next election.

Mat Boyle, Craigshill, Livingston.