Monthly Archives: February 2009

Where has the Today programme been for the last year? This morning I awoke to hear them asking someone if the UK government was borrowing too much and if it could find it difficult to raise all the money, as if this were a new question. The interviewer then rushed to retail the government’s misleading [...]

The BBC this morning heralded the “success” of keeping average Council Tax rises down to 3%, and gave a Labour Councillor a free ride to praise the government and local government, with no critic of the rises and no Conservative allowed anywhere near the item. Shouldn’t someone have asked if good Councils can cut the [...]

The new deal for RBS is pure monetary madness. Taxpayers already own most of the bank,and have lost a packet on their shares. Now taxpayers are being made to guarantee £325 billion of bad and doubtful debts as well! Now the government has decided to underwrite the losses in the future. RBS has to accept [...]

AN UPDATE FROM THE CEO OF UK PLC I am pleased to confirm record losses from our RBS banking subsidiary, and to announce losses of almost £10 billion at HBOS, where we have a substantial minority stake through the shares we hold in the Lloyds Group. Some of you may have been disappointed to read [...]

The way Labour and the BBC framed the debate yesterday about financial regulation was typical of the skewed view of the what is going on that now passes for public debate in this country. The Labour spokesman on Newsnight tried yet again to blame Margaret Thatcher for the crisis for “deregulating” the banks in 1986. [...]

The government’s disastrous bank share buying policy has landed them with payment of a pension of £650,000 a year to the former CEO of RBS for the rest of his life. I doubt they can do anything about it, other than pay up,. It leaves them defending the indefensible. There is no way public money [...]

On Monday we debated the “Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and learning Bill”. We were graced with a speech by the Secretary of State for Children himself, introducing this 225 page blockbuster. It summed up all that is so wrong about the way our country is governed. The Minister inhabits a strange quango laden world. “Pupils, parents, [...]

He spoke well, as he usually does. The main thrust of the speeech was partisan, announcing the twin spending packages for the banks and the rest of the economy again, telling us he will spend even more than he has so far told us, and reminding us why he thought they are needed. This was [...]

I am pleased to announce losses of £28 billion from our recently acquired RBS subsidiary and £1.4 billion for Northern Rock, acquired over a year ago. These losses are a pleasant surprise, as we did no due diligence before the acquisitions and were therefore unsure of just how big the loss making potential of these [...]