We need a ‘public bank not private casinos' says Green candidate

The Green candidate for the Norwich North by-election called today for a nationalised, democratically controlled, "people's bank" to make finance accessible and keep borrowing cheap.

Dr Rupert Read, a university lecturer and Norwich city councilor, argues that banks must be "public banks, rather than private casinos." We need "one powerful, substantially nationalized bank forever."

Response to Conservative Party policy revelations

Dr Read's calls for a "Bank of Britain" come in response to the Conservatives saying they would seek to considerably increase the power of the Bank of England so as to effectively replace the FSA.

Dr Read says: "The Tories' plans for the Bank of England are a hopeless bodge," and that what the Conservative party proposes is "an undemocratic behemoth, a mere strengthened artefact of the City that has so fully failed us." Read argues that a strengthened Bank of England only makes sense if the bank is "democratically controlled," not if it is still "hand in glove with the financial system."

Low risk banking has the answer

Read points out that "the credit unions, the mutuals, the ethical banks: in virtually every case, have sailed through the crisis." Read says that we must build on the ethical/mutual sector's success to build a low risk banking system designed to serve the people for the future.

A Green Vision

"A Green vision of a healthy financial sector is of a large and powerful state-owned bank ‘setting the tone' for the ‘financial market', the remutualisation of the former building societies, and a flourishing network of mutual banks, co-ops, ethical banks, and credit unions, across the country," says Read.