SIR – The bankers and gamblers of the City, together with the powers-that-be have used smoke and mirrors and the right-wing press to turn their crisis into our crisis.

People have lost, and will continue to lose, their livelihoods and their homes through no fault of their own, all to recapitalise these City gamblers so that they can retain the ability to dictate the course of our lives.

We should be able to control our own lives without these parasites. After all, there is no freedom without economic freedom.

The hypocrisy in the financial sector is astonishing. I ask myself the simple question if I had gambled my house away out of the sheer greed of wanting even more would they buy me a new house?

Would I have had the cheek to even ask them to, let alone demand it? I think not.

Then again, I suppose they had the luxury of using our money to gamble with, not theirs. What a system!

Max Hey, Fairway Grove, Bradford