ALISTAIR Darling would have us believe that government policies have had no effect on the current recession – it’s a global phenomenon over which we have no control.

At the same time, he tries to cheer us all up by meaningless statements such as “I’m confident we’ll get through it.”

Of course we’ll get through it. Economies always get through recessions, but the questions are, in what state we will be and who will pay for it.

The Chancellor and the Prime Minister pride themselves on having bailed out the banking system by heaving billions of pounds at it and running parts of it with a view to returning it to the class of adventurists who broke it in the first place.

The role of the banks ought to be to provide investment to businesses and to loan money to people for large purchases that they can’t afford to buy outright.

Instead, they have become money-printing operations, dedicated to maximising profits by loaning people more than they can afford at premium interest rates and by gambling on futures markets.

And even now that the government has advanced huge sums to the banks at low rates of interest, they are still restricting credit to small businesses and are crucifying homeowners.

Public ownership of the banks could provide the stability for a new economic and political approach that would see working people not only survive the recession but do so by building a society with different priorities than those cherished by the neoliberal fanatics at the head of all three major parties.

Today’s recession and the financial meltdown that signalled its onset were caused by reliance on market forces rather than government involvement to champion the public interest.

Banks seeking to return to profitability will want to sack large numbers of staff and repossess homes. Building corporations will mothball house-building plans until the housing market revives.

And the energy transnationals will be happy to continue screwing us all with their manipulated markets. If “we” get through this recession without mass unemployment, increased homelessness and winter carnage through hypothermia, we need a different approach.

The government has shown with the banks that it can afford to invest when it has the will to do so.

That will has to be expressed by putting building workers back in jobs to thaw out the frozen housing schemes and by initiating a state-funded council housing drive.

Public works, especially on Crossrail and new high-speed inter-city links, must be prioritised and there has to be immediate action to sequester energy company profits to assist people faced with unpayable fuel bills.

There must be no return to new Labour’s adoration of the stinking rich, exemplified by recent media publicity given to Peter Mandelson’s holiday haunts.

The costs of this crisis should be paid by those who helped create it and who enriched themselves in the good times. It’s time for an effective wealth tax and higher taxation on big business and the rich.

Now that the Establishment’s economic heroes have been shown to have feet of clay, it’s time for an alternative approach based on justice and co-operation rather than avarice.