I was delighted for the council taxpayers of Colchester to read in the Gazette that we might recover some of our £4million from Landesbanki, after local authorities are to be classed as preferential creditors.

But let us not count our chickens. Being a preferential creditor does not necessarily mean we will recover it all.

It does not infer we will recover all, or indeed any, of the interest we should have made on the money, and have thus lost. Indeed, I suggest we won’t.

Nonetheless, I did have a wry smile as the announcement highlighted “it was a vindication of the council’s decision to invest the money in the first place, because it could not reasonably have expected the bank to fail”.

If my memory serves me correctly, when we were not likely to get any money back, it was suggested that it was the Conservative administration (in which I served) that had authorised the investment.

But now, when it seems we might get some money back, it is the Lib Dems who are to be praised for their foresight to invest in this bank.

The Lib Dems’ own Treasury spokesman in the House of Lords had clearly advised – in the strongest of terms – against any investments being made at all at that time, in such demonstrably shaky Icelandic institutions.

You cannot run with the fox, then hunt with the hounds and expect people to believe you.

This investment should never have been made, against professional advice available at the time.

It is a simple but fundamental point and one that, whichever way it goes, has, and will, cost us money.

That we may now be lucky enough to get (some) of our money back does not change that fundamental issue. After all, what guarantee do we have that they won’t do it again?

Roger Buston
Wellesley Road
Colchester