WE CAN’T BANK ON MERVYN KING TO CONTROL THE BANKS
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
Bank of England Governor Meryvn King (pictured above) yesterday gave a gloomy forecast, warning that the UK economy had “only just started along the road to recovery”. Presenting the Bank’s quarterly inflation report, he highlighted the long-term damage to the public finances by the record Government borrowing undertaken to tackle the slump. And in a clear attack on the Government, he warned that the huge deficit would persist without “significant fiscal consolidation”. The Governor said: “The need for a credible plan to ensure a substantial reduction in the fiscal deficit is now clear to everyone.” These people always amaze me – if he thinks we need public spending cuts from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling (pictured below), why not just bloody say so instead of waffling ?
Mr King added that economic output would not return to pre-crisis levels for a “considerable period”. The Governor said repairing the damage of the recession would not be achieved in a few quarters after an extremely painful year for most economies around the world. The Bank’s report said the strength of the recovery was highly uncertain and forecast that “bank lending will probably remain weak over the next 3 years”. What kind of cop-out is THAT ? This is coming from the bloke that has just used Quantitative Easing (QE) to put £200 BILLION of our money into the bank’s coffers, in addition to another £125 BILLION they’ve had in taxpayer bail-outs - and now he’s saying the banks still won’t lend ? Maybe he should be FORCING the banks to lend, instead of passively presiding over a situation where the banks are taking the piss and sitting on OUR money and continuing to cynically profiteer (sorry, repair their balance sheets) while businesses and individuals continue to go broke. And if Mervyn can’t, or won’t, take control, maybe we should get ourselves a new Governor of the Bank of England – as well as a new Chancellor of the Exchequer.
UK Business Secretary Lord Mandelson (pictured above) is being put forward as a possible “Minister for Information” under a shake-up of the way Downing Street holds its media briefings. Officials planning the overhaul believe that one option would be for the Business Secretary to hold weekly news conferences to “explain government policy”. The Prime Minister’s spokesman announced the setting up of a working group to review the way Downing Street conducts media briefings in “an increasingly fast-moving and online media world”. One option being considered would involve Mandelson giving a televised briefing to reporters every Monday about government business. If ever there was an admission that Gordon Brown ain’t cutting it in the communication stakes, then this is it. Perhaps more alarming though is the thought that the last “Minister of Information” this blog writer can bring to memory was called Joseph Goebbels.
And while we’re on about propaganda and public enlightenment, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch (pictured above) has been forced to deny that he believes US President Barack Obama is a racist, after appearing to back the controversial Fox News presenter Glenn Beck’s comments about the Obama. The Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation had reportedly said in an interview earlier this week that Obama had made “a very racist comment” and that Beck’s views were “right”. But later he modified his stance by saying : “That was something which perhaps should not have been said about the President but if you actually look at what Beck was talking about, he was right.” So a half-hearted withdrawal at best. But then again, while I love Sky Sports, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take the views of Rupert, who after all backed Tony Blair for 10 years, too seriously in any case – especially if he really believes that someone like Glenn Beck is worth agreeing with.
The rapidly ageing and increasingly irrelevant Prince Charles has had his Canadian tour interrupted by scenes of violence (pictured above) as anti-monarchist protesters clashed with riot police. A group of militant Quebecois nationalists struggled with officers sent to clear them away, with one man left bleeding from the head and another dragged from the crowd and arrested. As the violence unfolded the demonstrators began a sitdown protest. The Prince and his former mistress, now wife, the rapidly ageing and totally irrelevant Duchess of Cornwall, had their arrival delayed by 40 minutes until the police had cleared the streets – something the Prince later jokingly referred to as “a little local disturbance”. More than 100 protesters had joined the demonstration outside the regimental hall of The Black Watch of Canada in Montreal where Charles was due to present new regimental colours. Waving the provincial flag of Quebec and anti-royal placards, the protesters chanted “Majesty go home”. Do us a favour, protestors - we don’t WANT them here either !
Have a look at the picture above. They’re Chinook helicopters, something of a rarity that our hard pressed soldiers in Afghanistan would sure like to see more of. And while there’s still a critical shortage of such essential equipment, Ministry of Defence bureaucrats have pocketed nearly £300 million in bonuses since the start of the Afghan conflict while soldiers have been dying from the dearth of such gear. The civil servants have seen “good performance” payments – including rewards for saving money – double during the period. And they’ve also been given extra cash for hitting targets for promoting diversity and improving health and safety. Says everything about New Labour’s priorities.
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