Bolitics The New Condem Government

[JulieB]

If the banks won't undertake the only socially worthwhile activity which might justify their existence, then the government should bypass them. Either channel all the funding into places like the Co-op and mutuals, or else set up a national bank, or both, with the requirement that these banks do what we need banks to do, not speculate in gambling on non-existent assets. Provide proper regulation and backing for worthwhile banks, leave the speculators without any public backing and let them entirely fund the losses they make. And it would probably be a good idea to extend the depositors' guarantee only to those banks judged to be fulfilling a worthwhile function, and exclude the casino banks. That would encourage depositors to move their money to useful institutions, and thereby increase the funds available.

Here here... I & a few other angry attendees specifically told the Bank of England representative at the last NW meeting (& TBF he agreed), that the large retail banks should be broken up into their respective sectors & that if they dared threaten to move offshore the UK government should call their bluff & have the balls to set up a national bank.

It seems though currently the UK Banks have Parliament, The Treasury & the regulator by the short & curlies. I do despair.

[Gringo]

Ex Labour MP David Chaytor has been jailed for 18 months for fraudulently claiming more than £20,000 in expenses.

Chaytor, 61, the former MP for Bury North, last month admitted three charges of false accounting.

thebeeb"]MPs' expenses: Illsley urged to quit after guilty plea

MP Eric Illsley is under pressure to stand down after admitting he fraudulently claimed more than £14,000 in parliamentary expenses.

He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to three false accounting charges over claims for his second home.

The MP, already suspended by Labour, will be sentenced next month.

Labour leader Ed Miliband urged him to do the "right thing" and resign from Parliament, while David Cameron called Illsley's position "untenable".

He was re-elected as Labour MP for Barnsley Central in May, but was suspended from the party after being charged shortly afterwards and now sits as an independent.

If Illsley receives a prison term of 12 months or more he will be disqualified from being an MP under the Representation of the People Act 1981.

[snowychap]

Nice spot.

I still can't believe he hasn't resigned.

It will be a novel idea to have to get a visiting order to attend an MP's surgery.

[bickster]

You sure that isn't Tony Stamp from the Bill?

[Gringo]

[table][row][col][col][/table]

Come on.....take off the glasses - you ever seen them in the same room together?

[saturdaygig]

have the balls to set up a national bank.

:shudder: no thanks. Break them up for sure - but a government run bank, it'd be a shambles. Governments are hopeless at running companies.

[snowychap]

The rich will reap none of the pain and all of the gain of Kenneth Clarke's legal aid cuts

To understand the government's phoney war on fat cat lawyers don't just look at the victims, look at the beneficiaries

There was a time when conservatives tried to assure people of continuity. The social order would remain intact. Revolution and reform would be suppressed, disruptive change averted. As political consciousness spread, this message became untenable. They repositioned themselves, first as cautious reformers, then, under Margaret Thatcher, as Jacobins, tearing down the old establishment to release people's stifled aspirations.

They attacked the professions. They attacked state monopolies and the state itself – or so they claimed. While Thatcher insisted she was the champion of the entrepreneur, the pocket shareholder, the little man, her policies greatly enriched big business and the rentier class. She claimed she was getting the state off people's backs, but introduced oppressive laws that curtailed our freedom. She deregulated business and re-regulated citizens. Now Cameron's government and its supporters are attempting the same trick: defending the elite by attacking it.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Kenneth Clarke's assault on civil legal aid, presented to the public as a blow against greedy lawyers milking the state. The Daily Mail, which knows the script to the letter, supports his proposed cuts by blasting the "fat-cat lawyers taking a fortune from hard-pressed taxpayers" and welcoming plans to slash their "multimillion-pound earnings".

The framing has worked: hardly anyone – certainly not the Labour party – now dares to oppose this crude assault on the rights of the poor. One month before the consultation period for the government's green paper ends, there's scarcely a murmur of protest. Roll up, ladies and gentlemen, and join the campaign to save the lawyer.

Don't we all hate them? The tax lawyers worming their way through loopholes to ensure their clients don't pay. The defamation lawyers silencing people who challenge the rich and powerful. The corporate lawyers twisting the arms of legislators. The well-padded barristers thronging the benches of the Palace of Westminster – such as, er, Kenneth Clarke.

But in this case the perception is false. Legal aid lawyers are not fat cats, but mangy strays. A legal aid solicitor who has been on the job for several years earns, according to the Guardian's chart of public sector pay, an average of £25,000. That's a lot less than teachers, town planners, probation officers and social workers, and a bit less than prison officers and sewage plant workers earn. I've been going through the likely consequences of the green paper with two solicitors from the legal aid practice Turpin & Miller. Philip Turpin, who runs a firm of 60 people, takes home £42,000 a year. These aren't starvation wages, but they are a fraction of what partners in other areas of law are paid or almost anyone else at this level in either the public or private sector.

The consequence of this phoney war on fat cats is a massive empowerment of the real elites. To understand what these reforms mean, don't just look at the victims: look at the beneficiaries.

John McNulty, who works for Turpin & Miller, gave me examples of cases he's working on which would no longer be eligible for legal aid. An elderly lady has just been evicted from her house because her son forged her signature for the transfer of her property and stole the money. She's now homeless. It looks like a case of negligence on the part of the conveyancing solicitors, who had an obligation to meet her and ensure that she knew what was happening. Her only hope of redress is to sue them. For that she needs a handwriting report, which costs £2,000. Today she can get one; when Clarke's reforms bite, such sloppy solicitors will walk away untouched. Who gains? Fat-cat lawyers of the kind these cuts were supposed to restrain.

A woman was beaten up by police outside a pub, who then claimed she had assaulted them. CCTV evidence shows her account was true and theirs was false. She can't launch proceedings without a CCTV footage report. Today legal aid will pay; when the green paper becomes law, it won't. Who gains? The police, whose abuse of power will meet even fewer impediments.

A prisoner was kept inside for 14 months after he should have been released, because the probation service lost his notes. Today he can get legal aid to pursue a compensation claim for this cock-up. After Clarke has savaged the system, he won't be eligible. Who gains? The incompetent bureaucrats who wrongly deprived a man of his liberty. So much for the government's promise to get the state off our backs.

Clarke's reforms protect landlords who have illegally evicted their tenants. As the government's localism bill creates a powerful incentive for landlords to change their tenants, there's likely to be more abuse and, without legal aid, less protection. The cuts protect businesses and public bodies that unfairly sack their workers or fail to pay their wages, as they annul the free legal advice to which the workers are now entitled. They protect schools that have unfairly excluded disadvantaged or disabled pupils. They protect any profession – structural engineers, surveyors, accountants, lawyers – that can be sued for negligence.

Those who are no longer entitled to legal aid will find themselves fighting, single-handed, against landlords, insurance companies and the state. Either they will clog up the courts, as cases with litigants in person generally take much longer than cases with legal representation, or they will give up and take the knock. That's what the Tory war against elites looks like. The rich reap none of the pain and all of the gain.

No win-no fee cases can't fill the gap. Even now, lawyers tend to select those that are so clear-cut that the case can scarcely be contested. Clarke's simultaneous reforms to civil litigation costs, which are more justifiable, will make the real fat-cat lawyers even less inclined to take on difficult cases. Nor will the "big society" pick up the pieces. Charities that help people with cases of injustice receive much of their funding from legal aid.

So beware rightwingers posing as heretics. Throughout the government and the corporate press, the guardians of the status quo present themselves as edgy and dangerous, kicking against the system, overthrowing accepted truths. But they wage war against one sector of the establishment only to the advantage of more powerful players. They rail against climate scientists, while defending the interests of big oil and big coal. They rant about doctors, to the benefit of companies that want a chunk of the health service. They lambast "health and safety Nazis", but not the careless corporations the inspectors try to restrain. As our failure to contest Clarke's disastrous legal aid cut shows, we keep falling for it.

[peterms]

have the balls to set up a national bank.

:shudder: no thanks. Break them up for sure - but a government run bank, it'd be a shambles. Governments are hopeless at running companies.

Companies often don't seem too good at running companies. Governments tend to get involved when they've screwed up too badly, with too many repercussions for other people, to be allowed to carry on. I think we passed that threshold a long time ago, as far as banks are concerned.

[blandy]

There's no long term need for Gov't to run any banks. As Julie said, Mutuals and the co-op provide an alternative to the tooth and claw banks. They should perhaps be helped or promoted by Gov't, but I feel Gov't should control the things people need as essentials, the rest, leave alone, as saturday said, they're not good at and they also need ot concentrate on areas where they are absolutely needed. Legislate to stop excess where it could impact the taxpayer adversely, and then get on with sorting out stuff that they can affect.

[Awol]

Interesting that the new boss of Barclays told the Treasury Select Committee yesterday that, "It is not acceptable for taxpayers to bail out banks," and that "badly managed" banks should be allowed to fail. Any chance we could implement that theory retrospectively...

[peterms]

Diamond's comments imply that Barclays don't get bailed out by governments. Couple of things on that. First, there's the fact that they, like other banks, have large exposure to other banks who were directly bailed out, and would otherwise have stood to lose large sums if these banks had not been thrown massive amounts of our money. The chart on p54 of this report illustrates this interconnectedness quite well.

Second, there's the implicit public subsidy received by the entire banking sector, recently quantified at c£100 billion by the Bank of England, p51 of same report.

The distress or failure of a systemically important financial

institution (SIFI) is likely to entail large-scale economic costs.

These costs engender expectations of government support and

so allow SIFIs to benefit from an implicit funding subsidy from

taxpayers (Chart 5.9). This subsidy encourages SIFIs to rely

more heavily on debt finance (Chart 5.10) and to take on

additional risk to maximise the value of the subsidy.

For Diamond and others to pretend that they are not extremely dependent on our largesse, and that their profits are down to their own hard work and acumen, is simply disingenuous.

He seems to be saying now that he thinks the implicit subsidy should be done away with, which is what allowing banks to fail means; but his bank and others have the wealth they have today in large part because of that subsidy. Coming the line that other banks have been subsidised and his hasn't, is just deception. The whole system has been subsidised.

[snowychap]

For Diamond and others to pretend that they are not extremely dependent on our largesse, and that their profits are down to their own hard work and acumen, is simply disingenuous.

Pretty much the same line that Varley peddled every time he appeared in an interview.

Typical Barclays.

[drat01]

Cameron is being completely ripped to shreds at the moment over this

On the Tory web site there is still a "pledge" that there should be no bank bonus over 2k

link

No bank bonuses over £2,000

Sunday, February 15 2009

David Cameron has stressed that no cash bonuses over £2,000 should be paid to any employee of a bank which has a significant taxpayer shareholding.

In an interview on the BBC Politics Show, David said, “People who work hard are seeing billions of pounds of their tax money being paid out and are rightly angry about it.”

And he attacked Gordon Brown for failing to put conditions in place to limit the bonuses paid by those banks that have taken taxpayers’ money - RBS, Lloyds, B&B and Northern Rock.

“Unfortunately the only action the Government has taken is to announce a review into bonuses which will not report until the end of the year. Because of this dithering we could see bonuses being paid out for a second year to executives in taxpayer owned banks which is unacceptable.”

Putting the limit at £2,000 would mean bank tellers are not unfairly punished.

[tonyh29]

as i understand it the government is currently powerless to stop such deals

[Gringo]

'powerless' as in 'don't want to'.

This is why govts appoint quangos. Govt appoints quango, in this case UKFI, quango takes rap for govt decisions. And I tdon't think this quango made it onto the bonfire list either, so everyone must be happy how it's being run.

[snowychap]

This is why govts appoint quangos. Govt appoints quango, in this case UKFI, quango takes rap for govt decisions.

Also, PM and the village idiot dictate cuts in budgets from the centre but 'decentralize' the decision making about how to do it to departments and local government.

Lose your job? It wasn't us, chaps: it was them. They had the 'choice'.

Lose your service? It wasn't us, chaps: it was them. They had the 'choice'.

[JulieB]

I watched Bob Diamond being grilled by the TSC..... What a load of fudge. His attempts at "death of an argument by boredom" crossed my mind!

Interestingly enough credit has all of a sudden started to ease & IFAs & brokers, those remaining!...... are noticing that lenders are starting to court us for clients commercial & resendential. It just struck me that ALL the while the government have been breathing down their necks over bonuses, they've not been lending or tightening restrictions putting on a squeeze. Now that it looks like the bonuses are not to be taxed quite so much & it appears the govt have caved in over getting tough - it's very much business as usual as regards to their remuneration & bonuses. Not sure this is all the explanation, but it has crossed my mind that the banks have been refusing to dangle their carrot - whilst the stick was being waved!

After hearing the fine the regulator has dished out to RBS & Nat West of £2.8 for bad customer complaints handling.

Lloyds Banking group really are a disgrace - largely owned by the UK tax payer - their boss is in line for a hefty bonus, yet they are refusing to pay the Ombudsman (FSO) fees of £500 a go for Payment Protection Insurance complaints... in direct defiance of the FSA AND getting away with it!! Not to mention being one of top perfomers in the FSO league for appalling customer complaints handling overall.

Going back to governments being too inefficient to run a National Bank, whilst I agree with this to the most part...thinking about it it's worth mentioning that the Treasury have been running National Savings & Investments (N S & I) succesfully for donkeys years (Granny Bonds, Premium Bonds, Nat Savings Certificates, Cash ISAs et al, which are 100% backed by the UK government.

We also have the Post Office Bank, which is currently a national bank of sorts as well.

[peterms]

Fixed.

Cameron is being completely ripped to shreds at the moment over this

On the Tory web site there is still a "pledge" that there should be no bank bonus over 2k

link

No bank bonuses over £2,000 - in your dreams, you chavs

Sunday, February 15 2009

David Cameron has stressed that no cash bonuses under £2,000,000 should be paid to any employee of a bank which has decided it wishes to pay bonuses.

In an interview on the BBC Politics Show, David said, “People who 'work' for banks are seeing billions of pounds of their bonuses being questioned by common or garden oiks and are rightly angry about it.”

And he attacked everyone else for failing to put conditions in place to magic up money to pay for the bonuses paid by those banks that have taken taxpayers’ money - RBS, Lloyds, B&B and Northern Rock (and the rest) - without savagely cutting living standards for the rest of the country.

“Unfortunately the only action the Government has taken is to announce a review into whether there should be a review about the possibility of a review which might consider is it would be worth reviewing bonuses in preceding years, though not those currently under consideration, which will not report until the end of the year. Or another year. Because of this dithering we could see bonuses being paid out for a second, third, or even thirtieth year to executives in taxpayer owned banks, which is what I told my chums I would deliver. And so I have.”

Putting the limit for benefit claims at £2,000 would mean even more money for bankers.

[snowychap]

We also have the Post Office Bank, which is currently a national bank of sorts as well.

Isn't that the Bank of Ireland?

[JulieB]

We also have the Post Office Bank, which is currently a national bank of sorts as well.

Isn't that the Bank of Ireland?

Not sure..its a bit of an odd arrangment because they offer NS & I products as well as Bank of Ireland.

I know they've scrapped plans to make it a proper National Bank that was announced last November, which is a pity but I thought that all of their products were backed by the UK government.

I had an account with the old Girobank through the PO who I'm presuming were a government backed entity?.... & they were fab,never had a problem at all with them. They would accept cash payments into a business account without charge, whereas all the high st mob charged loads for handling the stuff. Alas they became Alliance & Leicester who are now owned by Santander - the Spanish bank!!