Business
Here at the Evening Standard, we start work early in the morning. Which means that when I drive to work the roads are usually virtually empty.
Just as well - because the other day I nearly careered off the road in Barnes, such was my fury at the brazen hypocrisy I was hearing on the radio.
First, there was the red dwarf herself, Hazel Blears, declaring that from now on she was going to be "bread and butter champion" for the people of her Salford constituency after she survived a deselection vote.
Bread and butter? This is a woman who failed to pay £13,000 capital gains tax on the sale of a flat in Kennington.
She said her house in Salford was her second home, then switched it to the Kennington flat, while telling the Revenue it was her primary residence.
When she sold it four months later, she avoided paying CGT on her £45,000 profit because the tax man thought it was her main home.
Then, the Chancellor came on, saying Sir Fred Goodwin had done "the right thing" in reducing his pension by £200,000 a year. "I think that Sir Fred, in handing back part of his pension, is doing the right thing."
By now my car was swerving violently. The right thing? We don't need lectures in right and wrong from someone who changed his designated second home four times in as many years, who repaid around £700 after claiming for two properties at the same time and, as overseer of HMRC, claimed public money for personal tax advice and submitted a receipt for a 30p bus ticket.
At least, in the sanctuary of my car I could shout and bang my fists at the guff I was listening to.
Sadly, that option was not available to those City folk who had to endure the Chancellor's speech at the Mansion House when he proclaimed that "bank boards must have the right people and the right skills and experience to manage themselves more effectively; their focus must be long-term wealth creation, not short-term profits; they must recognise their duty to shareholders is best fulfilled by acting in the interests of all - not just some - of their employees."
All credit to those bankers present for putting decorum and etiquette before reason and not heckling or walking out. But they were also treated to Mervyn King expressing the need for caution in regulatory reform. I don't know about you but I'm getting rather tired of the Governor.
I know it's heresy in some quarters but I do wonder about his contribution to the debate as to what went wrong and where we go from here.
To be fair to the Government and Financial Services Authority, they've done their bit but one leg of the three-legged stool known as the Tripartite Authority looks consistently wobbly.
The Bank was slow to react to the crisis, failing in its financial stability remit and preferring to hand out lessons in moral hazard.
The other two legs did respond. The Government recapitalised the banking sector and produced legislation to take out failing banks.
At the FSA, its chairman, Lord Turner, produced his report - by far the best piece of official analysis of the drama. The watchdog has conducted its own review of Northern Rock, hired 200 extra staff and revamped its supervision role.
The Prime Minister is often accused of being Macavity but perhaps that name should be attached to King. I've listened in vain for a ringing apology from the Governor for presiding over an explosion in credit.
Seemingly, he thinks it's the banks' and politicians' fault but not the Bank's. All we get from Mervyn is: "We are a long way from identifying the precise regulatory interventions that would improve the functioning of the markets."
This has been interpreted as an attack on Darling, saying the Chancellor doesn't know what he is talking about.
But it sounds pretty clearly like the Governor doesn't have a clue either. It isn't good enough. We need actions from our leaders, not hollow words.
No comments:
Post a Comment