"Personally, I think that the Capitalist ststem has simply become unsustainable, regardless of whether a Consevative or Socialist govt are in power.

The point surely is, what are you "wits" going to put in its place?"

Given the fact the banks have taken a whole wodge of taxpayers money and done sod all except withdraw help for small businesses (120 a day closing) and still pay themselves nice healthy bonuses it strikes me as bloody obvious: regulation of the capitalist system. People cannot be trusted to play fair and act responsibly in business, and it seems the richer they are the less interest in any social responsibility they have.

Seeing as right-wingers are constantly bleating on about how we have to hammer home the responsibilities to society of the drunken, boorish underclass with their 13 year-old mothers and sponging 'jobseekers' it's high time those no less boorish louts at the other end of the income ladder got a sharp rap around the ear and were made to start acting with some integrity. Unfortunately, Thatcherites don't view integrity and morality as desirable personality traits and so the New Labour suits still have their lips firmly puckered onto the arses of the industry grandees they claim to be sorting out.

Tezza's assertion "well we've been here before and the same system gets us out of the mess . . . exactly as it has done before." only goes to prove the point - the system is fucked without regulation. Boom and bust is not a great system, and the fallacy of Thatcher's 'trickle 'down' effect has been proved with the emergence of an underclass of people who feel utterly detached from the rest of society and 30 years on from her instigating policies that saw perfectly profitable companies go to the wall as their cashflow dried up, we're watching it all happen again.

The real problem is all the main political parties all adhere to some sort of Thatcherite economic policy, so ingrained in the culture has it become. Even the Lib Dems are now broadly Thatcherite in this approach (with the possible exception of Vince Cable, the lone voice of sanity amongst the babble of confused, bullshitting politicians) and this means there is no real viable alternative and I personally believe the return to state intervention in the running of the banks is more of a short-term fudge than a genuine attempt to regulate the activities of the banks; is there any evidence of ministers actually imposing their will on the fat cats of the banking boardrooms? I can't see any, just Darling on the TV spewing his usual trite claptrap whilst Brown whinges that it's really not his fault, as he hangs onto the apron strings of the bankers.

Without state intervention the capitalist system cannot regulate itself and curb it's worst excesses. Without a government committed to imposing social responsibility upon the capitalist system this is going to happen again and again (not a good thing Tezza, especially for those at the bottom of the pile - especially in a global marketplace), and the gap between rich and poor will keep growing.

The only way capitalism will ever work is within a socialist framework, and at the moment there are no politicians who can offer that as an alternative.