Brown pledges to clean up the banks...

[Osem]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7916215.stm

Here we go again. Despite having presided over the whole thing, Brown's now going to sort it all out and make sure those naughty banks (you know the ones who used to be his best buddies) don't get away with it again.

Given Brown's track record in sorting out dodgy dealing amongst his own ranks, I reckon this latest pledge is just another example of the increasingly desperate gesture politics which characterises a Govt. in terminal decline and facing an election. In any event, given what's going on, I reckon Brown's bigger problem is ensuring we have a banking sector at all and replacing all those lovely £££billions his former chums like Fred the Shred used to provide in tax revenues for Brown to squander.

It's not just our banks which need sorting out either. With the EU having expanded eastwards faster than the UK's housing bubble inflated, things aren't looking too great over there:

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3159

I wonder who'll pick up the tab for this.....

Answers, invoices and begging letters to 10/11 Downing Street c/o the European Union.....

[papa smurf]

well i wait with baited breath to see if gordy bland can get our money back from sir robbin banks.

[Osem]

From what I've heard of the legal opinion there's fat little chance of us getting any cash back from Fred the Shred or anyone else in a similar position unless they agree to it.

This whole debacle just goes to show how naive, inept and/or just plain stupid our glorious leaders are. What's more worrying is that these same people are now in control of large portions of the banking sector having been forced to put vast sums of our money at risk.

This is just more hot air from Gb trying to hide the fact he presided over this whole disaster and wants to be seen instead as the saviour of us all. Lasting as long as it takes for the next election to be over then it will be back to business as usual brown nosing these bankers as he has done all through his political career since getting into office.

I really am sick and tired of hearing lots of noise and seeing absolutely sod all action from this bunch and we all know why they can't push that hard or those they hit will start letting slip about things that this government has done or known about.

[Will21st]

New Labour and GB are washed up beyond repair.Time for a GE!!

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Will21st

New Labour and GB are washed up beyond repair.Time for a GE!!

Well said.

This Government however will hang on and hang on to the very end hoping and preying something will turn up to save them from extinction.

[BBKing]

Interesting piece pointing out why Fred's Pension is the consequence, not the problem.

http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad....s-failure.html

No, they can't take it off him - confiscation of property at executive whim is not what we're about in a British democracy and thus a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Much better for RBS to sue him for dereliction of duty, or similar, but that runs the risk of, as Chris Dillow points out, revealing just why unrestrained executive greed wasn't just tolerated by the political leadership, but encouraged.

The common thread here is that the powerful don’t need restraining because they have our best interests in mind. If only leaders are given enough power, they can guide and protect we mere mortals.

I missed the bit where they conclusively proved that absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely after all.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Interesting piece pointing out why Fred's Pension is the consequence, not the problem.

http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad....s-failure.html

No, they can't take it off him - confiscation of property at executive whim is not what we're about in a British democracy and thus a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Much better for RBS to sue him for dereliction of duty, or similar, but that runs the risk of, as Chris Dillow points out, revealing just why unrestrained executive greed wasn't just tolerated by the political leadership, but encouraged. I missed the bit where they conclusively proved that absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely after all.

Perhaps the electorate should try that approach on Brown and his cohorts..

[Tezcatlipoca]

I see Harriet Harperson has stepped into the whole "Sir Fred's pension" thing...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7917361.stm

"And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in."

While I think it's rather offensive & ridiculous that Sir Fred has got such a massive pension, given that RBS is a failed bank propped up with taxpayers' money, I'm not so sure that "the court of public opinion" has any actual standing in this matter...

[Will21st]

Will Gordo give up his pension too?

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Will21st

Will Gordo give up his pension too?

Doubtful!

The thing is that if the muck hadn't hit the fan, Fred the Shred and his buddies would still be Brown's best mates and top of his Christmas card list. After all it was Fred's legeondary business skills and closeness to good old Gordon which gave Brown a very large stick to beat Salmond with and help secure New Labour's majority.

The truth is that neither Brown or any of his band of inept idiots wanted to ask the questions which might reveal what some of us had long known - namely that Brown's economic miracle was a house of cards just waiting for the merest hint of a breeze.....

[BBKing]

I have to say, having recently sat through a speech from Harriet Harman, she is really as colourless and uninteresting in person.

"And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in."

This is either meaningless rhetoric or a leading member of the government claiming the law doesn't matter when the government decides it doesn't matter. I'm not sure which is worse. They must love Fred, such an easy way to say 'Look at him, not at us'.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by BBKing

I have to say, having recently sat through a speech from Harriet Harman, she is really as colourless and uninteresting in person.



This is either meaningless rhetoric or a leading member of the government claiming the law doesn't matter when the government decides it doesn't matter. I'm not sure which is worse. They must love Fred, such an easy way to say 'Look at him, not at us'.

What's new about that?

She even has the audacity to urge Fred the Shred to do the 'honourable' thing - what on earth does she know about that FGS?!!!

[BBKing]

What's new about that?

Not much, obviously, but I've not seen it expressed so, well, honestly before. Blair would say things like 'the rules of the game have changed' when he meant to say 'I don't like these rules so I'm going to play by some new ones I just wrote'.

Harman is essentially, perfectly reasonably and dispassionately saying that legal protections on anything don't matter if the government thinks public opinion supports a particular course of action, regardless of the consequences*. Ask the public if Fred The Shred should lose his pension and they'll say yes. Ask the public if they'd be happy with the government arbitrarily taking money off them without reason or law and they'll say 'hell, no' (the public generally don't like speed cameras and those do have a reason and law behind them), but they're essentially the same thing. If Fred loses his pension I want it done legally.

* I've been pondering the word 'consequences' a lot in my recent political musings, actually. The defining political ideologies of our age seem to lack any understanding of consequence, it seems to me, probably because they lack any understanding of history (or think history is something to be shaped to show how their ideology is the natural progression of things rather than something entirely alien). There's something very Year Zero about both New Labour and neoconservatism. Something very, well, Creationist. No surprise to find both stuffed full of Old Testament freaks, then.

[Osem]

To be honest I'd be delighted for Fred to lose out providing the same 'rules' can be applied to the likes of Bliar, Brown, Darling, Straw, Mandelson, Harman, Smith, Blears, Hoon, Robinson, Vaz, Prescott and all the other New Labour pigs at the trough. They've hardly been a great success have they!