Monthly Archives: March 2009

The meeting of the President and the Prime Minister at the G20 is a meeting of the new Masters of the Universe. Between them they wish to gear up the world economy with unprecedented levels of public borrowing on both sides of the Atlantic. They will privately chide the Europeans for not doing more of [...]

It is amazing that some want to try to make the story “leaks” from the Commons fees office when MPs expenses are available for their annual viewing. Whilst leaking information is not a good way to behave for any employee, these are hardly state secrets that need to be held back. All this information is [...]

Today’s news that Nationwide will take over the deposits, staff, offices and good mortgages of the Dunfermline Building Society presumably requires substantial taxpayer payment or guarantee, just as the Bradford and Bingley one did. Once again I can find no mention of the sum of money to be handed to Nationwide as dowry to pay [...]

Most of us know there are limits to what we can afford. We manage our daily budgets with an eye on our income. We know that the taxman has the right to grab loads of money first. We know we have to pay the mortgage and whatever ransom payment the local Council and the utility [...]

On Wednesday I was asked to write an article on how we got into the current economic mess by the Daily telegraph. They told me they wanted it for Monday’s paper. On Friday after I had written it they changed their minds and said they did not want a piece about that after all. I [...]

Listening to the Chancellor he apparently needs to be careful when bailing out an institution that just loses a few tens of millions, whereas he was remarkably careless when bailing out RBS, an institution that lost £24 billion last year. Beneath all that spin, it sounds as if the taxpayer is still going to end [...]

The government will spin that there is no bail out for this Building Society. Yet we learn in the smaller print that taxpayers are likely to end up owning the bad debts and the dodgy assets, or at least guaranteeing the deposits. So it’s not dun bailing – it’s more bailing. I guess they have [...]

I have been chided for daring to write about this on my blog. You all understand only too well the Labour spin machine, and why this story suited the BBC. It’s a nice irony that you have now all done what I did – written about something that is a non story – in larger [...]

I was telephoned and Thursday and invited onto the Today programme for Saturday to discuss the successes and failures of the Govvernor of the Bank of England . I readily accepted and said I would adjust my Saturday morning to get to a studio. On Friday evening they left a message to say I would [...]