CAN WE BANK ON GORDON BROWN TO REGULATE TONY BLAIR?
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
In the UK, Government appointed City regulators are to be given new powers to tear up bankers’ contracts if they include excessive pay and bonus deals which might threaten the stability of the financial system, it was revealed yesterday. The measures will be included in a Financial Services Bill forming the centrepiece of Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown (pictured above) said would offer a thorough overhaul of controls over the banking industry. In a podcast on the Downing Street website, the PM said: “We will ensure that the banking crisis we have experienced over the last 2 years should never again come at a cost to the taxpayer. This means a transformation of the way the financial sector is policed, with banks themselves and not the taxpayer made to pay for bank failings.” And if you really believe that folks, you’ll also believe that Tony Blair’s annual multi-million pound consultancy from an international bank will likewise be curtailed by the Government appointed City regulators. At the risk of offending Caledonian Comment’s many Muslim readers, I’ve just seen a pig flying over the local mosque.
US President Barack Obama was branded the “Groveller-in-Chief” over the weekend after he gave an exaggerated bow (pictured above) to Japan’s Emperor Akihito, the son of Hirohito, the ruler who authorised the December 7th 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. Coming just after Remembrance Day, the President’s deep bow caused an outcry in the US where photographs and videos of the moment were widely publicised. For while it was seen as a sign of deep respect in Japan, Mr Obama was blasted in America for “bowing and scraping” to a foreign leader – particularly a Japanese leader, as wartime scars are reportedly still raw for many Americans. Right-wing circles are apparently particularly enraged. Isn’t it ironic ? - The Rednecks hate the idea of Obama paying homage to a Jap while that’s precisely what they want Obama to do to them.
And during his Far Eastern tour, President Obama and other world leaders at a trade summit in Singapore (pictured above) have accepted that next month’s Copenhagen cllimate change summit is now unlikely to produce a legally binding deal on CO2 emissions, with agreement on global warming measures set to be deferred until the middle of 2010. So it looks very much like Gordon Brown and New Labour will have to introduce punitive green taxes in the UK unilaterally, without even the spurious justification of a meaningless international agreement. But I’m sure Gordon and his grasping, revenue-greedy politically correct fellow savers of the planet are all up to the challenge.
Italy is to push for the creation of a European Army after the “new Europe” takes shape at this week’s crucial EU summit following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. Franco Frattini, the Italian Foreign Minister (pictured above), said that the Lisbon Treaty had established “that if some countries want to enter into reinforced co-operation between themselves they can do so”. This was already the case with the euro and the Schengen accords on frontier-free travel, and could now be applied to “common European defence”. What a good idea – then all our EU partners can send THEIR troops to Afghanistan and we can get our lads the hell out of there.
And while we’re on about right-wing cretins - in Italy and America - failed US Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin (pictured above) will appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show in an interview which will kick off a media frenzy over her personal life, her fractious relationship with the John McCain campaign and her potential as a contender for the 2012 White House election. The interview will be followed by the official launch of her book “Going Rogue” on Tuesday and the start of a 3-week bus tour on Wednesday. Although the bus tour is ostensibly to promote her book, it bears all the hallmarks of an election campaign, decked out with her image and visiting not the big cities normally associated with literary tours, but the smaller towns of the Republican heartland and the swing states. The interview ends a year in which she has adopted a relatively low public profile, after the mauling she received from parts of the media during the election campaign. Presumably the same kind of half-wits who would buy her book are the same kind of half-wits who would deny their fellow citizens healthcare. No wonder she’s steering clear of big cities – she might run in to some people with a brain.
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