Month: December 2007

I hear that synthetic anger and misrepresentation of my views is being encouraged on another site, following a Labour Minister with nothing better to do with his time than misrepresent my website. In view of this I will not be posting any more on this.

The choices for handling Northern Rock have been narrowed to three by the spinners for the government and the Lib Dems.

The first is sale of the bank to a third party who could repay some of the government loans immediately, and take care of Northern’s financing needs thereafter. The best chance of doing this was the Lloyds expression of interest before the crisis became acute. The authorities failed to respond positively.

Since then we have not been told of any large organisation emerging as a bidder which has the balance sheet strength to take it on and solve the problem itself. The two preferred? bidders need access to substantial market funding, and one only wishes to buy a minority stake. Even Lloyds needed financial help from government and the markets, as Northern is big even for a bank the size of Lloyds. Anyone needing access to substantial market funding will face the same kind of difficulties that caused the problem in the first place the drying up of credit in markets.

Everyone agrees the sale to a third party who could solve the financing problem would be ideal, although there remains scope for disagreement about how to value the existing shareholder interest in such circumstances, and scope for disagreement about how much money taxpayers should expect to get back immediately, and for how long the remaining money could be lent to the new owners.

The second is nationalisation, the Lib Dem’s recommended solution?. The new Lib Dem leader showed his folly by rushing in to back this irresponsible proposal as one of his first acts, after appointing a pop star as an adviser! He clearly does not want to be taken seriously and does not think things through before issuing the press release.

Taking on over ??100 billion of risk in a single mortgage bank at a time of falling house prices and credit crunch is too big a bet for taxpayers. Many of us think taking on ??25 billion of risk is dangerous, but quadrupling that is absurd. The government itself has stupidly increased our risk by an amount the Chancellor told us on December 19th he could not quantify! It shows they are being far too cavalier with our money.

As the Lib Dems themselves admit, the government would not bring any especial expertise to running a mortgage bank and would need to seek professional management from the City. They say it would be temporary, leading to a sale at a later date. They forget that nationalising would mean the taxpayer had to pay for any one off losses or write downs that may be necessary on inspecting the books, and for any running losses the bank might incur under nationalised management.

If it turns out the bank cannot sustain its current level of employment, the taxpayer will have to pay for the redundancies. If the bank needs to expand its branch network or invest in new computers, the taxpayer will have to make a judgement about that use of public money as opposed to school and hospital spending. Given the scale of Northern Rock total liabilities bigger than the health budget any government would be mad to take on those risks. Just losing 1% of the assets costs more than ??1000 million.

The third is Administration. The government could demand repayment of its loans (subject to any legal promises it has made about their duration, which the government refuses to tell taxpayers and Parliament) which could trigger administration in current circumstances as there is no lender prepared to replace the taxpayer at the moment. That too would be a foolish policy. Shareholders would be aggrieved, as they have been told by the authorities that their bank is solvent and been led to believe taxpayer funding will see it over a difficult period. There is no good market in mortgages and the other principal assets Northern Rock owns, so any fire sale at these levels would guarantee the taxpayer lost money. The Administrator is no more likely to find a big buyer for the whole bank than the current auction team. There cannot be any potentially interested party in the world who is unaware of the sale process. If the government favoured this route it should have refused to lend the bank any money in the first place so no public money was at risk.

There is a fourth option which needs proper discussion. I call it the tough bank manager? approach.

The option starts from where the government has got us from the position where taxpayers have lent money and guaranteed loans but do not own the mortgage bank. It recognises that when you are in a hole you should stop digging. We have to accept that the Treasury/Bank of England combination are the principal bankers to Northern Rock. It is high time they started acting as a bank manager faced with an over borrowed client who cannot repay in a timely way.

They need to:

1. Explain the limits of their funding to Northern.
2. Set out the interest rate and interest payment dates for the loans.
3. Set out a schedule for capital repayments.
4. Take all the asset cover there is left in Northern to secure their huge loans.
5. Insist on daily cash and profit monitoring.
6. Place a cash sweep on the business that returns surplus cash to the taxpayer at regular intervals.
7. Insist on approving all increased spending of any kind on capital and revenue account.

The repayment schedule should not expect repayments currently, whilst the main banks are trying to arrange their own affairs to show strong balance sheets for the year end. It should start phased capital repayments later in 2008. It would be up to Northern’s management to decide whether these repayments could be met from trading profits and cash generated within the business, or from refinancing in commercial markets, or from selling assets. Where assets are sold, the government team needs to insist on a minimum price to protect its asset cover position.

The extraordinary thing is that apparently many of these basics of banking have not been observed by the nation’s top financial team. The Chancellor on December 19th in the news conference once again told us little. I hope they are doing more than they are saying, but there is no evidence that they done a good job on securing the taxpayers position, either by means of securing full specific asset cover or by means of repayment schedules that are tough but achievable. It’s high time they started. We are told they have asset cover for the loans, but specific questions have not been answered about how the protection works. There has been no hint of any repayment schedule.

It appears they hoped the Branson bid, and then the nationalisation idea, would reassure depositors, reducing the pressure for taxpayers to put up more money to replace lost deposits. The best way to secure the deposit base is to take strong and sensible action, so it looks as if the government as bank manager has a professional grip on its over borrowed customer, and will stand behind them until it is sorted out. If a buyer emerges who can raise the necessary money then all well and good the bank manager can agree to the sale if that is what shareholders want to do, having secured the taxpayers’ interests.

All this assumes Northern is a solvent business which we know it has to be as the regulators are letting it trade. Assuming they are right there is no need for taxpayers to lose a penny so why won’t the Prime Minister repeat his promise about that? His hesitation damages confidence. If they nationalise it the taxpayer is likely to end up with a huge bill given the past track record with nationalised businesses, as well as legal actions from unhappy shareholders assuming they offer little or no compensation to them.

I naturally wish those trying to sell Northern every success in finding a good answer, but I do want the government to protect the taxpayers’ money fully in those negotiations.

Today, at last, on the Jeremy Vine show, I was allowed to explain how the government should deal with Northern Rock, and set about getting our money back from the ailing mortgage bank. I was also allowed to debate why nationalisation would be too expensive and too risky for taxpayers with Vince Cable.

I trust also it was good radio for them. It was certainly more balanced and more lively than the Today programme’s fawning interviews with the Lib Dems, with no-one allowed to challenge their nostra.

Readers of this site know that I have always thought Clegg would win, and never thought it made much difference whether he or Huhne did. They both believe in massive transfers of power to the EU, and both want to deny us the promised referendum on the constitutional treaty.

Mr Clegg should be given no honeymoon, as his leadership begins by denying the referendum his party promised in the last election. He and his party misled the public, and he cannot claim to be a new honest face when his first important deed will be to instruct Lib Dem MPs to vote against our referendum amendment to the European Treaty Bill. His silly rejoinder that he wants an In-Out referendum just increases people’s cycnicism about politics, as Labour has clearly ruled such a vote out, and never promsied one of those in the first place. We should expect rebels of conscience on the Labour side over a Treaty referendum, but they are not in the same embarrassing position over an In-Out vote.

Mr Clegg’s very poor margin of victory will mean he has to get on with Mr Huhne, and will doutbless tack a little more to the "left" or bigger state side of the argument, as that is clearly what his party membership wants. Mr Clegg has no decisive mandate for change, and will need to be careful. Lib Dems turn nasty if they do not win by-elections. Mr Clegg will have to watch his back if the third party squeeze continues.

The government’s bodged sale/reorganisation of Northern Rock has a new complication today.

We learn that one mortgage bank is interested in buying the mortgages. Maybe others would be too. The response depends on the price they are prepared to offer, and on whether there will be a successful new owner/lead shareholder or not.

My advice is to say to anyone interested in buying the mortgages that there will be a competition to sell some of them if after a suitable period there is no successful bidder for the whole business. This is a decision which has to be taken by the Northern Rock board, but one which should be influenced by the Bank of England telling them they want some of the taxpayers money back soon.

It would be quite wrong to enter discussions with just one buyer of mortgages, without allowing others to bid. It would be wrong to force the sale of good mortgages at a large discount under the pressure of circumstance. There should be a reserve price which protects the taxpayers’ interest. That is why we need a timetable for repayment which allows this immediate market crisis to pass, and allows some sense to return to the market in second hand mortgages, so the shareholders and taxpayers get proper value for their asset and their security.

At a time when even the Bank of England acknowledges there is insufficient market liquidity, it must be obvious to the authorities they will not get a good price for anything being sold in distressed conditions. First sort out the worst of the credit crunch, by making markets more liquid, and getting banks through their year end book squaring, then see what can be realised to cut the debt mountain at Northern Rock.

Meanwhile the ECB is upping its intervention in markets substantially, as it sees how serious the squeeze has become. The Fed is taking all sorts of action ,trying to repackage off balance sheet debts, cutting interest rates and making cash available. It is still the Bank of England that is doing too little very late, as it still seems to be in denial over how dramatic this year end credit crunch is.

We will not know until the new year whether the banks will feel able to lend a bit more once their year ends are out of the way, or whether their balance sheet stretch is such that current restricted lending is the new norm. Some people say that of course there must be a long period of much restricted lending, as the west has overblown the credit for too long.

Whilst agreeing that money was far too loose, and agreeing that the Basel rules encouraged all sorts of off balance sheet lending that the regulators allowed to happen on too large a scale, I do not agree that we want to live through a long period of little new credit being advanced.

I want to live in a country where young people have a chance of raising a mortgage on their incomes to be able to buy a house. I want new businesses starting up and existing businesses wanting to expand to be able to borrow money to grow and create jobs. It is not evil to lend and to borrow. It is crucial to a successful enterprise ecomnomy, and it is beneficial both to those of us with savings in our pensions or elsewhere to lend, and those in need of borrowings to get started.

I might have guessed when the Today programme phoned to invite me on they were not about to do a serious peice on the credit crunch, or provide some balance to the perpetual diet of pro nationalisation comment from the Lib Dems on Northern Rock. Apparently they are readers of this site – but of course the story they wished to do was Mr Coaker’s misrepresentation of a couple of sentences on rape, not a tough interview on the series of articles on how to handle the financial crisis.

When will the BBC learn to follow big stories like the credit crunch and Northern Rock in a balanced way? I have no intention of dancing to NU Lab’s media tune just to please the Today programme.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The latest decision to guarantee most of the liabilities of Northern Rock is a clanger.

There is no statement to Parliament, no statement of how much is now at risk, and no statement on how long our money is to be at risk.

Why cannot the government understand that it has to be tough bank manager to Northern Rock, lending the least it can get away with, imposing strict repayment timetables, and monitoring cashflow daily to ensure that all surplus cash is used for debt containment or repayment?

This government seems to think the taxpayer is made of money. Although Northern Rock is not a huge bank by international standards, judged in relation to the size of the Bank of England it is a collosus, and in relation to the UK public sector it is large.
Guaranteeing maybe ??100 billion is the equivalent of one fifth of stated total public debt, the same as the annual NHS budget, and almost one fifth of total public spending. They are crazy to do that.

Every one percent of error or loss on the whole Rock balance sheet is ??1 billion! Before this move 1% of taxpayers exposure was a mere ??250-300 million, already large but just about within the government’s command.

Northern Rock is too large to nationalise, and too large for us to guarantee all its liabilities. Unfortunately you cannot help some people – they are just determined to get it wrong.

Additional comment: we are now learning that maybe so far we are “only” guaranteeing ??60 billion. It is outrageous that Parliament and markets cannot be told how much is being guaranteed, and on what basis. The authorities lecture other banks about the need for transparency, and then commit the taxpayer to these large risks and vast sums without any proper explanation of how much, for how long, and on what basis.

I hear that today’s papers have a misrepresentaion of my blog on crime from no less a figure that Vernon Croaker, Home Office Minister for Crime Reduction.

He wishes me to apologise for comments which merely reported what is happening in courts on his watch, and fails to quote the balancing comments in my piece.

That is par for the course from Labour. No wonder we have such a crime problem, when the Minsiter charged with the task of reducing crime spends his days reading my blog – and presumably other Conservative blogs, and then sends out a press release and talks to journalists based on a misrepresentation of what I was saying.

I cannot recollect anything Mr Coaker has done to bring down crime in this coutnry – yet he has the power to act. In opposition we only have the power of words to try influcence those who can act, which is why I blog. Ministers should do, not blog.

Instead of playing silly media games, Mr Coaker, why not start tackling crime seriously.

Today’s news that the Bank of England is making liquidity available to the markets is a sensible move, but we should not expect too much of it. The mismanagement of the Northern Rock liquidity crisis has made UK based banks very worried about borrowing from the Bank of England, at the very time when they need to without fear of anyone concluding they are in difficulties because they are so borrowing. This is a tight year end for most banks, which accounts for their reluctance to lend to each other when they need to conserve cash to show stronger balance sheets in their December 31st Reports.

The Bank’s traditional weapons to fight a credit squeeze of cutting interest rates and offering liquidity in money markets have been blunted by the Northern Rock disaster. The Chancellor and Bank need to take other action at the same time as easing money to rebuild confidence. Without confidence, offering liquidity and cutting rates will not be enough to end the squeeze.

The first thing the Chancellor should do is to convene a meeting with the FSA and the Bank and work out a new regulatory structure for the money markets and main banks. We read in the press that the government thinks the right answer is to set up a Cobra type crisis committee chaired by the Chancellor the next time there is a run on a bank or some such similar problem. Far from rebuilding confidence, this type of irresponsible briefing to newspapers undermines it further.

We do not want to hear they are planning to handle a run on a bank better next time. We want to hear they are taking regulatory action to prevent a run on a bank. We do not want to hear that the second most important politician in the government is to be given the job of day by day supervision of money markets and banking as well as all his other duties. We do want a thought through response to the crisis, set out in a Statement to Parliament and followed promptly by whatever institutional reform is necessary.

I would suggest that the government does the following:

1. Give management of government debt back to the Bank of England, so the Bank sees all the government transactions in money and debt markets and influences the timing of them.
2. Give day by day supervision of the main banks back to the Bank of England: not because the FSA did badly, as they alerted the system to the crisis weeks before it became critical, but because the Bank of England needs to see day by day the positions of each bank in money market and debt instruments to inform its decisions about the needs of the system.
3. Reaffirm the Bank’s central role in ensuring a liquid and functioning money market, as the complement to its role in inflation fighting and establishing interest rates
4. To remind people that the Chancellor needs to be kept informed on a regular basis of general progress and urgently if there is a major problem as he has to explain the Bank’s actions to Parliament and has to make the decision on appointments to the top of the Bank.

Items 1 and 2 recreate the more powerful Bank before Brown’s reforms. The misnaming of these reforms as creating an independent Bank of England? has been particularly damaging, as they did the opposite in the crucial areas of debt management, bank supervision and running effective money market activities.

The government then needs to sort out Northern Rock. Some transparency would help. Taxpayers and markets need to know how much has been lent by the Bank to the Rock, when it will be repaid and what security has been taken to protect the taxpayer. If the government offers us more transparency of its own actions, it then has the moral authority to demand the greater transparency it says it is seeking from clearing banks over the valuation of their off balance sheet items. It should not nationalise Northern Rock, but act as its tough but concerned bank manager.

Restoring confidence does require market participants to be able to assess the damage done to the financial system by the decline in asset values on both sides of the Atlantic. The government must not kid itself that this is just a sub prime US crisis. UK market participants also want to know what impact the decline in UK commercial property values already well underway will have on bank balance sheets and the collateral they have taken for loans. They also wish to form a better view of how far residential property prices in the UK might fall, and what impact this could have ?along with job losses and the personal income squeeze on UK mortgage assets and loans held by banks.

There is a lot to do to relax the squeeze. It may be that once the year end is out of the way for the banks, and we have seen their year end balance sheets, things will start to loosen. To be sure they do the government needs to make that statement on the future regulatory position, and needs to get on with leading the market to greater transparency by explaining its own ?and the Bank’s complex and large transactions in markets since the Northern Rock run began.

Gordon Brown’s case for signing the Treaty without the referendum he promised was based on the proposition that he was relying on Parliamentary approval.

When I and others asked for a debate and a vote in Parliament before he went to Lisbon to sign, we were refused.

The Prime Minister went ahead and signed without either the promised referendum or a vote in Parliament. So much for democratic accountability, and for involving people and their elected representatives in the main decisions.

Today I asked him the simple quesiton, what will the government do if either the Commons or the Lords votes to modify the proposed legislaiton to implement the Treaty he has signed? He refused to answer.

The truth is, Parliament will be told it has to accept the Bill as drafted, because it has to accept the Treaty it is implementing lock stock and barrel. Gordon Brown is not going to go back to the partners in the EU to renegotiate any part of it which Parliament does not like.

The 20 days or so of promised debate on this Treaty in the Commons next year will be a farce. It is happening too late, as the Treaty is a done deal. We will not be told to take it or leave it, but to take it or take it. Doubtless the massed rank of Lib/Lab MPs will oblige, and the massed ranks of Lib/Lab peers.

No wonder people are fed up with politics. This government is playing silly games with such crucial matters. They spin they want Parliament to have more power, yet by this Treaty they have just given away a lot more of Parliament’s power, without a single vote that matters before they did so.