Monthly Archives: September 2010

I have only written once on the topic of the Labour leadership. At the time David M was the clear front runner. I suggested brother Ed would come from behind and overtake him. Apparently today that is now Labour’s majority view. You read it here first.

The Governor of the Bank of England today becomes a politician. We are told in advance of his audience hearing that he will offer to protect the public from the banks. That is not what I want to hear. The Governor is the senior unelected official in economic policy. He and his institution are responsible [...]

The public reports of strong arguments over welfare reform need some examination. The welfare budget is different from most other government budgets for one good reason. Parts of it are “demand led” – if more people need unemployment or disability benefits they need to be paid. Other departmental budgets can be settled a year or [...]

The news from Cuba, a socialist country, is bleak. A much smaller population than the UK’s has to shed 500,000 jobs in a hurry, because they have run out of money. Cuba is one of those places where state planning and a proportionately much larger public sector has kept the country poor. Now there is [...]

Some public sector Union leaders want to use the “cuts” to trigger a massive Union campaign allied to strikes. When a public sector union goes on strike it is striking against itself and the public. Strikes usually make things worse all round. Strikes encourage people to find other ways of doing what ever the strikers [...]

The agreement at Basel will require banks in due course to have safer levels of capital. There were two main problems with the proposals. The first is requiring a sudden surge in new capital now might just delay or slow recovery, as the easiest way for banks to meet the requirements is to lend less. [...]

Let me say something unpopular. The UK should drop the anti banker rhetoric. The sport of banker bashing may have come in handy for unpopular politicians facing their own crisis of probity, but time has moved on. Banking is a most important part of the UK economy. London and the Uk benefits from acting as [...]

One of the reasons banks in the UK are so unpopular is poor perceptions of the service they collectively offer. Small and medium sized enterprise can be frustrated by the apparent lack of interest in them. The branch bank Manager no longer seems to have the power to develop a relationship and make intelligent judgements [...]

Sir John Vickers is a an accomplished senior academic, with Bank of England and Competition authority experience. He comes to the task of reporting on how the banks should be structured and regulated from a perfect background. I know he will approach it seriously with useful knowledge but no opening prejudices. One of the first [...]

Yesterday I asked Mr Clegg to confirm that current public spending will rise 15% in cash terms this Parliament according to government budget plans. I asked him to confirm that this being so the puloic sector need not cut any important public service. It would be incompetence or perversity if it did make cuts in [...]