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Public built up too much debt, admits minister
Nicholas Cecil and Hugo Duncan10 Sep 2009
Millions of British households built up too much debt under Labour, Lord Mandelson admitted.
Opposition MPs seized on the Business Secretary's comments as an admission of failure of the Government's economic policy under Gordon Brown.
His remarks came as signs of recovery grew with interest rates kept on hold by the Bank of England, which also decided not to pump more money into the economy through "quantitative easing" - seen by economists as another hopeful sign.
Mortgage lender Halifax said house prices rose for the second month in a row in August.
In a speech at the Central Party School in Beijing, Lord Mandelson said that the economic crisis had "revealed weaknesses in all of our economies".
"Britain's households carried too much debt and its large financial services sector made it vulnerable," he said.
"Many parts of the Western mortgage and investment banking industries suffered what can only be described as a crisis of professional and regulatory competence."
Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "Now we finally have a Cabinet minister admitting that economic growth was seriously unbalanced under Gordon Brown."
Reader views (3)
'The public' built up too many debts? Maybe, but the government knocked the public's efforts into a cocked hat when it comes to living beyond our means!
- Paul, London, 10/09/2009 16:13
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What percentage of British citizens built up too much debts? How dare Mandelson go round insulting the entire populatiuon of the UK, especially after the this government has borrowed eye-watering sums of money from who knows where against the wishes and interests of the British people. The people who borrowed too much money were the Russian/Israeli oligarchs and "businessmen" and foreign football owners and property developers who've been lent OUR money by OUR banks to buy up OUR assets.
- Sonia Dixon, Brentford, UK, 10/09/2009 16:02
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Quite right.I'd say nearly all of these 'working class' Labour voting families (that don't have a days work in them) all possess huge TV's and those vast DFS sofas acquired on the never never.
It's called living beyond your means which is what Labour stands for.
- Steve, London, 10/09/2009 15:22
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