AFTER four nights of looting and violence, like many other people in our society I’m angry. Very, angry!

My anger is directed at the people who are responsible for what has been described as mindless vandalism. Not just those who are directly responsible, but those who are really responsible for the crisis we are in.

These real villains are the people who have imposed 30 years of Thatcherism on our society.

The people who said they were going to make us better off when they knew damn well that most of us were going to end up poorer.

These people are the privatisers, the deregulators, the people who have taken our pensions away while supporting bankers bonuses, the ones who pocketed the profits while the losses were being nationalised, the free market fanatics who worship the winner-takes-all, beggar-my-neighbour capitalist economy that puts us all in thrall to the market.

We used to have a reasonable balance in this society. We used to believe in the public sector and the public good.

Not any more. People have been seduced by the glitzy worship of celebrity and consumerism that has been rammed down our throats. Private good, public bad!

The wanton destruction of good, honest public institutions that served to public good. Those institutions weren’t perfect. They had their faults. They needed improvement. But they were a sight better than their profit-driven, private sector replacements.

I look back with nostalgia at British Rail. Yes it was tatty but that is because it was starved of investment. It was a damn sight better than the crowded luxury cattle wagons we are crammed into nowadays at exorbitant prices while the likes of Richard Branson trouser millions of pounds worth of profit every year.

The phenomenon we have witnessed in the past few days is the result of the chickens of Thatcherism coming home to roost.

The underclasses have learned the lesson from their betters in society – if it’s there for the taking, take it.

The looting is the mirror image of the behaviour of the bankers.

The bankers have looted our society to the tune of hundreds of billions and now the so called feral rats are taking their share from the likes of Top Shop and JD Sports to the tune of hundreds of millions.

The difference is that the rats will end up in jail.

But what about the bankers and their politician chums? The message to society is: if you wear a suit you can go out and loot – with impunity.

HOWARD THORP