I AM not sure whether to admire the loyalty or pity the naivety of your correspondent Wiktor Moszczynski in defending Gordon Brown's handling of the economy.

We enjoyed 10 years of 'boom' under Mr Brown and are now enduring the 'bust'. This boom/bust cycle is not a new phenomenon but has regularly occurred over the last 150 years in free economies across the world.

As the great American economist Murray Rothbard has shown, the cause of boom/bust is always the same namely a government's loose handling of the monetary system in permitting unrestricted credit expansion.

To this extent it is not the bankers' or anyone else's fault. To be fair, there was little objection during the boom years from the other parties and little was heard then even from Vince Cable.

Mr Rothbard has also warned of interference from government by trying to avoid the worst of the bust such as the famed 'quantitative easing' recently implemented by the Bank of England on Mr Brown's authority.

This only extends and deepens the bust.

We will be feeling the effects of Mr Brown's lack of ability for many years to come.

RAY HIRON Avenue Gardens

Acton