From Prof Robert H. Wade.

Sir, If only it were so simple. Robert McGee and Yeomin Yoon Letters, December 29) declare that all corporate bail-outs are by definition unethical, “because they force the public to support companies they have already voted not to support” and therefore constitute “the illegitimate use of state power to take by political means what was not earned in the marketplace”. As though the state should take no view about what happens to an industry in trouble provided that (a) competition is fair, and (b) national security is not involved.