The corporate greed that has ravaged the US has wrecked Britain too

‘If you substitute Margaret Thatcher for Ronald Reagan and the City of London for Wall Street, [Reich] summarises precisely what has happened here.’ Thatcher and Reagan in 1988. Photograph: /Rex/Shutterstock

Robert Reich’s account of how the holy writ of corporate profit has bought about the near disintegration of US society will be familiar to students of UK political history (Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us, 29 January).

I grew up with the capitalism of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, in a society where the NHS worked, our industry and transport remained a vibrant reflection of British pride and ingenuity, the population were housed, and rents and mortgages were within the reach of ordinary wage earners.