There is now talk that Bradford and Bingley may be nationalised, given its current difficulties. As readers will know, I am concerned that nationalisation, both here and in the US of major financial institutions is not and should not be the first be the first reaction of government. Nor, for that matter, will over-regulation succeed in stabilising markets in the long term.
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Archive for September, 2008
Dear Prime Minister Brown,
I see this morning that you have announced at your conference that you wish to curb “irresponsible” city bonuses that encouraged “excessive” risk taking.
Before I continue this letter, I would like to say that I am not a banker, have never been a banker, am not married to a banker, am not the child of bankers and in no way financially dependent on banking bonuses.
I have been out of the country since last Saturday, as I was attending a work conference in Prague. Unusually for one of these events (which tend to be conducted in bubbles), there were CNN and Bloomberg screens up all over the place - the outside world was not lost on us.
The news, both in the US and UK, seemed to be changing by the minute, with the breakdown in our Government complicating things on this side of the pond. Therefore I was not surprised to have been asked this question half a dozen times since my return - there is simply so much going on, that it is now becoming increasingly difficult to process the level of data coming in.
I am having to follow the LibDem conference digitally from Prague, where I am staying for a work-related conference this week.
From what I am reading online, Vince Cable has now dropped the Party’s commitment to the Euro, Nick Clegg is advocating tax cuts and small government and David Laws wants to scrap the National Curriculum and bring back a kind of Assisted Places scheme, which they call the “Pupil Premium”. Nick Clegg is even considering sending his children to Private School - good for him (and his kids).
On the surface, I am delighted - they were our ideas to begin with.
In the Scottish version of the Queen’s speech, First Minister Alex Salmond has laid out his legislative programme for Scotland for the coming year.
One of his plans is to ditch council tax and replace it with a local income tax. The problem, however, is that Salmond is currently running a minority SNP administration, and will need the support of some of the opposition parties to get this change through.
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