Labour just don´t get the banking crisis

It is fascinating to note how Labour just do not get the banking crisis.

This is all exemplified by an interview with John Redwood and Derek Draper, on the Nolan show. You can download the MP3 here, or read a partial transcript here, thanks to the University of Manchester Conservative Future, via Iain Dale´s Daily Dozen.

You see, in Draper world, and from having talked to real world New Labour supporters, New Labour world, this is a combination of American bankers, and greedy bankers here, and if there was any fault here, it was not enough regulation but Labour would have regulated more than any one else as everyone else wanted more regulation.

Well I have news for people who live in Draper world or indeed New Labour world, and it is this.

It does not matter how much regulation you have, if you are regulating the wrong things, with the wrong people who don´t know what they are looking at.

There is no sensible way that a regulator could decide what sort of mortgages a bank should offer to an individual. There is every way that a regulator could supervise a banks balance sheet and its spread of risk verses it capital and cash.

It is true that the Conservative party does want less regulation, in the sense of less looking at each individual deal. What we do want is to get a tighter control of the bigger picture. That is the way it used to be done, before Gordon Brown, and it is the way it will be done after him.

Derek Draper, a demented man from a demented party!

Thus far, I have not commented on Derek Draper, and frankly the man is not worth spit, so I don´t know why I am now.

I listened to his comments on the Daily politics with Guido, (See the crown blogspot here) and he clearly does not get the Internet at all, in any way shape many or form.

The man is a pratt.

If you listen to the ¨round 1¨ of the interview you will here Guido challenging Derek ¨plonker¨ Draper over his funding and links to the Labour party. Of Labourlists funding,he said it was transparent, and a list of donors was published annually, and no he did not get funds from the Labour party. When pressed he did say he had union money, but insisted that people could look at the published list published annually... except of course that Labourlist has not been around for long enough to publish such a list yet.

So in the same sort of spinning that has it that Derek has a qualification in psychology from Berkeley* he then attacked Guido for his funding. As Guido had no money, where did he get the money to set up his blog, he must be in someones pocket!

Well, this just shows how ignorant Derek is. Guido´s blog, and indeed Iain Dale´s and mine cost nothing to set up. Not a penny other than my time. You see, the problem is that Derek just does not get the Internet at all.

*That assumes he has any qualifications at all in anything. If Derek Draper seeks to do work for you perhaps you should ask to see the qualifications he claims to have, and then go and check with the institution the paper claims issued them. He certainly did not study at Berkeley campus of the University of California. Guido has this.

UK bond sale fails

The sale of gilts, to cover government debt failed yesterday, in that the sale did not raise all of the money it was intended to raise.

To be fair, it was for a 40 year bond, and this sort of thing has happened before, so there is no intrinsic reason to panic.

However the next bind sale occurs during the G20 summit. If that fails, we have huge problems.

The BBC has this, the Daily Telegraph has this.

Sir Frank Goodwin´s home and car attacked!

Sir Frank Goodwin´s home and car has been vandalised by some people who hate bankers and think they are criminals.

Police in Edinburgh are now looking for 60 million suspects who have a motive.

The BBC has this.

Ken Clarke on inheritance tax

Apparently Ken Clarke has said, on national TV that perhaps raising the inheritance tax limit to £1,000,000 may not now be the priority it was because Labour have so trashed the public finances.

Fair comment, I say. I agree. I suspect a lot of people may have said the thing. The only problem is that Ken Clarke is in the shadow cabinet so should not have said it. It leaves the way open for attacks from Labour, and surprise surprise that is what has happened. It also has to be said that he need have said nothing now, after all it is not his brief.

Mind you I am amused that Lord Mandelson has piped up claiming that ¨the Tories are confused on tax¨.

Not something you could accuse Labour of, they know exactly what they want to do on tax, hence the 10p tax fiasco, which is to tax everyone until the pips squeak and the economy is bust.

The BBC has this.

£60,000 for terror suspect arrest makes me very angry

Babar Ahmad has been awarded £60,000 in damages after his arrest on suspicion of terrorist offences in 2003. This makes me really angry. Not so much that he has been given the compensation but more so that I as a taxpayer have to pay it.

The police seemed to have reason to believe that he was involved in terrorism so they arrested him. That is fair enough. If the police have a reasonable suspicion it needs to be investigated and quite possibly arrests need to be made. He was released after 6 days. Had that been the extent of it that would have been fine, and that would have been the end of it. It appears however that he was treated in a very heavy handed manner, and assaulted whilst under arrest.

That has cost me £60,000!* What do these idiots think I am? Am I made of money? No! What I want to see now is some serious investigation and arse kicking. We can´t have the police beating up suspects, and I can´t afford the compensation.

Apparently one of the officers involved may be prosecuted. Really? IF one is successfully prosecuted that implies all the others have given false statements perverting the course of justice, so all should be prosecuted.

The BBC has this.

*£60,000 is what he gets in compensation, there will of course be legal fees to add to that, so add between £100,000 and £200,000 of our hard earned because some in the police would like a return to the 1970´s.

Unemployment hits 2 million

Or at least that is the official number by the governments preferred measure, as per the ILO (International Labour Organisation).

Well, the thing about that number is it does not include the numbers on incapacity benefit, a wheeze dreamt up in the 1980´s to make the numbers look better, and still working well to massage the numbers for this government.

What is of great concern though is the rate of rise in benefit claimants, up by the highest monthly rate since records began in 1971. Now that is grim.

Still, its alright if you work in the public sector, where jobs are still being ¨created¨ and where wages are going up faster than the private sector.

The BBC has this.

If you´re happy and you know it, vote Labour!

One of the reasons that PoliticalBetting.com is the premier site for discussing politics is that it has many intelligent and frequently humorous posters commenting on very well written articles.

The above was a comment on this article, and you can read it in context here. It relates to unemployment.

Natasha Richardson has died

This is very sad news. Natasha Richardson is part of the very famous Redgrave family, and indeed married to Liam Neeson.

This is a personal tragedy to the whole family, particularly her children and husband. I am very sorry for their loss.

This all started with an innocuous harmless skiing accident causing no apparent injury bar a bit of a knock to the head. It just goes to show how dangerous head injuries can be, and how hidden the real damage can be.

The BBC has this.

The Global Banking Crisis

It is interesting to note that Gordon Brown and his merry band of spinners, including John McFall (chairman of the treasury select committee) keep saying that the banking crisis is global.

Well, it is, in the sense that if American and British banks go to the wall, the globe is truly screwed. It does not mean that every bank in the USA or UK were or are on the brink of going to the wall, but enough are.

What it isn´t though is a global banking crisis if you mean everyone´s banks were all at it. They were not. As an example, Spain´s central bank, when asked by its banks if they could get into buying securitised debt said yes, but you will need more share holder capital. Needless to say they did not bother. Lebanon´s central bank just said no. Not only that it told its banks to get out of a number of American banks with so much advance notice that the net loss to them has been $20 million, which is peanuts.

That is a crucial difference. Those central banks were not regulating their banks but supervising them, much as the Bank of England did prior to Gordon Brown taking over and hoarding power to the Treasury, whilst giving away the fig leaf of independence to set interest rates with a government appointed committee to government set targets on what inflation is.

So the banking problem is global in its fallout, but make no mistake, it is not global in its causes. They were for the most part authored in London and Washington.

Beauty Spot Saved!

Hooray! Surely?

The Mid Sussex Times carries this story on this weeks edition (Well, it was out last Thursday) and is not alas not yet online as they seem to have trouble catching up with the end of the 20th century let alone the 21st!

The long and short of the story concerns an area of land known as Paddocksland which is adjacent to Blunts wood and Paiges wood.

It was considered for housing development and has been found to be unsuitable.

The thing is this though, it was always going to be considered and always turned down. All sorts of land is because it has to be considered, and is turned down because it is unsuitable. So it is not true to say it was saved because it was not under threat.

That said, I don´t want to discourage people from making clear what their feelings are. It is however a bit sad when what purports to be a newspaper over eggs the pudding.

The Miners strike, 25 years on.

It seems there is much dewy eyed nonsense from lefties about the lovable miners and that evil witch Thatcher.

Lets get this straight.

There was no legally constituted miners strike, because there was no ballot.

What there was was an attempt by Arthur Scargill to topple a democratically elected government as the NUM and other unions had done before under both Labour and Conservative governments. Unfortunately for the miners Scargill was too thick to work out what those huge (5 million tonne) piles of coal around power stations were for.

So lets have no nonsense for those bullies who deemed no one could work on one mans say so.

The Pension of Sir Fred the Shred Goodwin

Firstly the idea that the man who drove a well respected and solid bank straight into the ground should walk away with anything is obviously wrong. It seems reward for failure at almost its most grotesque. It seems that he gets to retire early on £693,000 per year. His pension pot is reputed to be worth £16 million though I have heard some say it may be worth as much as £24 million as it is both indexed linked and presumably would benefit his widow.

Now, as I said it is very very wrong that he should have been given this pension, or quite possibly given a contract of employment that would give rise to such a pension even if he trashed the bank.

Thing is though, he was and he has. However wrong that is, that is it.

Harriet Harman has made much of how wrong it is, and implied that it is wrong in the court of public opinion, as if that counts over the rule of law.

It does not. That was lies mob rule and a very dark place where paediatricians get their homes burnt down because some mobs are to thick to understand the difference.

What is more, parliament could not pass a law to now strip him of his pension no matter how much people hate it, nor should parliament do so. What would you call such a bill? The ¨we all hate Sir Fred bill¨? Or perhaps the ¨removal of unjust rewards bill¨? If the latter who decides what an unjust reward is?

Even if parliament did pass such an act then it would be remarkable if it was retrospectively active as in affect past deeds. Obviously it would have to be so, which is very very rare indeed. Then of course such a law would get thrown out as being incompatible with the Human Rights act, as an unjustified interference with property.

This all goes to show just how ridiculous Labour´s and in particular Harriet Harman´s position is.

So who is to blame? Well clearly if there was any legal discretion in the award the people who failed to exercise it including government ministers and board members of RBS and the UK investment authority. If there was none, then we have to blame those who drew up Sir Fred Goodwin´s original contract.

The BBC has this.