make I seem to recall the Wall Street crash in 1929 (not personally!), when banks went under too.
I don't think the 70s were down to companies and banks. Iirc, the highest tax rate was 80% and Healy had the stated ambition of taxing the rich until the pips squeak, thus driving those who could make money offshore. I think this www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141012115344-1088431-a-new-age-of-imf-bailouts-great-britain-in-the-1970s is interesting as well for some context. I remember the winter of discontent (personally), and the three day week.
I think the govt is more redistributive than in the 70s and the 80s when I was briefly unemployed. There is far more support for families than there was then in terms of tax credits, child benefit, subsidised childcare etc. Whether it is redistributive enough is another matter, and the tax rates that would be required on the nordic and Belgian levels to pay for that are very high. One could argue raising the tax free allowance and taking people out of tax altogether is redistributive in itself. Our Flemish neighbours were 
and 
at the UK tax free allowance and rates, and the car tax too!
The bank rate might rise soon, though it's been nice that the mortgage rate has been low, indeed, the lowest I can remember (and I was glad to be on a 10.8% fix on Black Wednesday when we crashed out of the ERM).
I don't think the UK has suffered as much as some places (Greece) through having the ability to set our own rates by virtue of having our own currency.
I think anger happens with poverty, but not always right wing nastiness, depending on your political persuasion.
DJ not at all; I have bits of lyrics and verse hanging around in my head, hence the brightest and best comment. If you are referring to the 'thick' comment, I was referring to the post by scaryclown made early on where she indicated that the right fed on voters being as thick as fuck. I was merely pointing out that the same accusation could be made of the left, not that the Left were thick. I am equally bored with left wingers who try to point score all the time, and won't debate.
I don't agree that the right thrives when times are bad; I think there have to be balances, and that what we are seeing at present is a correction of the shift to the Left. The pendulum will swing the other way again. I also disagree about Fascism. One could argue that the French and Russian Revolutions were born from starvation and war, and I don't know that I would class either of those as fascist revolutions. The pogroms of the Stalinist era weren't fascist either, but the communist state dealing with those who disagreed with it.
cock agree about Dan Jarvis being an asset, though I understand why he won't run at the moment. Military service is an undoubted strain on family life, let alone the workload and exposure of being Labour leader at present.
I've seen the Tories go through the same thing in the Howard, Hague and IDS years and despaired. With people like Jarvis, the Labour party will be back.