WHILE fervently hoping that the planned rescue of HBOS goes ahead without too much difficulty, I think it is important to remember how this once venerable institution came to be laid so low.

As we all know, the original Halifax Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society was formed in 1853.

Like all early building societies, the aim of the Society was for the mutual benefit of local working people. I think the key word here is "mutual". Investors with spare cash invested in the society to receive interest, and borrowers used loans to help buy a house.

By 1913, it was the largest building society in the UK, and when, in 1928, it merged with Halifax Equitable Building Society, then the second largest building society, it was renamed the Halifax Building Society, and became five times larger than its nearest rival.

For the next 70 years it continued to grow and to work primarily for the benefit of its members.

However, in the mid-1980s the Tories under Mrs Thatcher allowed building societies to demutualise, and become public limited companies instead of mutually owned organisations, owned by the customers who borrowed and saved with the society. They also allowed banks to offer mortgages, which had traditionally been the preserve of building societies.

The Abbey National demutualised in 1989, and after a lull of a few years, suddenly within the space of a few months in 1997, the Halifax,
the Alliance & Leicester, Bristol and West, Northern Rock, and The Woolwich all demutualised.

There was a palpable feeding frenzy when hordes of carpetbaggers joined mutual societies with the hope of making a quick buck from the conversion.

However, the benefits to former members now seem piffling compared with the benefits to the City and the suits who managed the conversions. The fees and commissions paid out amounted to £1bn.

What about the supposed benefits to consumers that increased competition was going to bring? A study of the demutualised societies by Parliament in 2005 found that the customers had benefited very little, and in most cases paid more for a mortgage from a bank than from a building society. The MPs argued that the real winners were the directors who ran the building societies at the time of conversion.

The sad fact is that of those building societies who converted, all have either been swallowed up by other banks or been nationalised.

Like Esau we were encouraged to sell our "birthright for a mess of pottage". The unbridled greed that the Tories encouraged in our society, the "something for nothing mentality", will continue to have dire consequences for our country.

From: Paul Rouse, Main Street, Sutton on Derwent, York.

DAVID Cameron is right to say that our priority must be to resuscitate the banking system, but when the inquest eventually takes place, someone must ask why the non-executive directors who sit on the board of every financial institution, and who have a legal responsibility for ensuring that its managers act in the best interests of shareholders, approved the actions that have caused so many of their, and our, current problems? They either ignored them, or did not see them happening, both of which are inexcusable.

For too long, many non-executive directorships in both the public and private sectors have been handed out as a reward for political influence, or as "jobs for the boys", whereas, these people should be the first line of defence against self-serving or incompetent management. It would only take a few high-profile NED's to be called to account for their actions, and we would see an instantaneous improvement in corporate responsibility.

From: Stan Robinson, Southwood Crescent, Leeds.

FURTHER to the announcement of Tesco's results, the United States was, of course, the pioneer in supermarket trading. It was, in fact, a revolution born out of tragedy and deprivation of the Wall Street crash in 1929 which literally put millions of people on the breadline.

To sell food at the lowest possible prices to these victims of the great depression, empty warehouses and factories were filled with cases of canned goods and stacks of groceries and customers were asked to "serve yourself and pay as you go out".

The bleak, desperately needed food centres bore no physical resemblance to the superb stores of today. But it was from such sad and unglamorous beginnings that the new method of food retailing developed to become a part of the American and British way of life.

Let's hope the spirit of America will once again rise to the occasion.


Justice at last for the courageous Gurkhas

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield, West Yorkshire.

AS the present financial drama occupies centre stage, providing an opportunity for spin experts to bury good news, I would like to bang the drum in celebration of the High Court decision in favour of the ever brave and loyal Gurkhas.

The alternative would not only have been a travesty of justice but would have brought more shame upon Britain as a whole.

Gurkhas are a naturally conscientious and loyal people as fighting servicemen and citizens alike. They deserve automatic citizenship as much, if not more than, many other groups who already enjoy and, alas, abuse their right in some instances.

It sickens me to think that some bureaucratic mechanism has even taken the matter to this present shameful level.

Bin Laden would not have the influence he apparently has on world affairs today had he been facing the mighty Gurkhas, and I am not trying to put down our own, under-funded, servicemen in any way.

We have accepted Gurkha service and loyalty on the cheap for years. Surely the very least we owe them is a respectful form of citizenship.