Root and branch

Anent the culpability for the banking collapse, Donald Lewis is only partly correct (Letter, 26 December).

Certainly the Goodwins and other bankers deserve massive blame, but it was politicians, starting with President Jimmy Carter and exacerbated by President Bill Clinton, who deliberately encouraged sub-prime mortgage lending.

Clinton also irresponsibly repealed the Glass-steagall Act provisions which from 1933 had controlled and separated commercial and investment banking, to everyone’s benefit except the banking gamblers.

Mr Lewis rightly blames ABN Amro Bank for its “worthless derivatives” which greatly helped RBS’S demise after its takeover based on greed, hubris and inadequate due diligence of ABN. But what has not been properly explained or condemned is the culpability of the Dutch regulatory authorities in their poor supervision of ABN.

JOHN BIRKETT Horseleys Park St Andrews, Fife