Time to prosecute the white collar crime

The thing that stands out most about the Barclays ( & others ) interest rate (libor) manipulation scandal is the lack of prosecutions. There is certainly a lack of taking responsibility at the top.

Remember manipulating interest rates arbitrarily robs some people to benefit the manipulator. Mortgages get more expensive - who knows how many people will have been forced over the edge by having to had pay more more on their loans ?

Yes its time to start making those who do the crime pay.

Inspector Yates might like to go after Melvyn King, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown and George Osborne - who should be doing the perk walk for QE and artificially lowering interest rates ( the victims being savers and pensioners, especially those having to buy annuities ), despite knowing that inflation has always remained over target.

After all if its crime for the Banker's, then it crime for the politicians and civil servants.

Perhaps this is why we don't have many prosecutions right now ....

The Cider sanction

When I heard Alistair Darling mentioned the 10p tax hike on Cider I was a little puzzled.

Its a very specific move, and one you can rely on appearing in the post budget headlines especially in the red tops.

And yet the budget has all been about doing nothing - except implementing a few popular Tory ideas, so they can't use them in their manifesto in a few weeks time.

All the pain has been denied or implied that it will fall on the hated rich ( it won't - but by the time people learn that it will be too late in Labour's plans ).

So what's all this about Cider ?

Well we know that it will hit hard in the South West.

We also know that the Lib Dems are likely to lose many seats in the South West.

Hence I concur that this is designed to help the Lib Dems !

How ?

Well you can see the Lib Dem leaflets already on this one. They do this sort of regional outrage combined with local campaigning very well. ( But so could their Tory opponents ).

But here's the trick - this will help drive Labour voters to prop up the Lib Dems, and that's precisely what they need.

You see nothing in that budget was done except for the political advantage of the Labour party.

Just because we can't see the reason straight away for a move doesn't mean its doesn't have a point.

My only question is has there been an collaboration with the Lib Dems on this ploy ?

Greece shows us one potential future tragedy for the UK

The Greek Socialist party won their recent general election on a set of blind refusals to accept reality that look a lot like Gordon Brown's refusal to own up to the staggering debt crisis he's created.

Their chickens are now coming home to roost very quickly indeed.

There is an ongoing debate in the UK about spending plans not adding up. Labour tried to claim Conservative plans don't add up - by making them up from Labour figures and with highly questionable use of civil servants time. Its of course laughable to take a lecture on this from Labour, but they know that - they are just trying to create a sense of general despair out of fear uncertainty and doubt.

Until the snow coup this week Labour were again in denial about the need to cut the public sector budget to reduce the deficit ( they are not even targeting reducing debt due to an economists trick of expecting GDP to grow so that whilst debt may expand or stay stationary as a proportion of GDP ).

Now Alistair Darling seems to have won the concession, extracted from Gordon Brown over the barrel of this weeks events, but he's sticking into the carry on digging till the debt hole till after the election strategy.

My guess is that Labour are now going to have to go long for the general election, and the risk of a currency/gilts crisis is now very real - and Darling knows he has to signal to the markets that Labour are lying to the electorate just to win votes (at least that line's credible), but will pay back the creditors when returned to power.

So perhaps Labour, as they are now reconfigured , may make some vague future promises in the budget they still claim to want to stage. But a few weeks before a general election it will be a purely political affair that makes the PBR look like an exercise is selfless statesmanship.

But still the bills must either be paid, or no more money will be leant. The UK is now reduced to its ability to borrow more money to put of facing up to the structural deficit Labour has run for almost a decade.

I imagine their will be riots and violence in Greece, and wouldn't rule out the same thing here.

Needs must when the devil drives

Labour are getting their pre -announcement spin in today on "halving the budget deficit".

Now often trailed major announcements from Labour turn out to be nothing of the sort. We have learn't through painful experience that Labour tries to dominate the headlines with its chosen phrase whilst sneaking the reality in a very small bit of print hidden away in long reports.

Its who and what they are.

However we should perhaps not dismiss the idea that the Treasury may really be under the threat. Shell - a vastly better run organisation the UK under Labour - had its credit rating downgraded recently. Its not clear the UK could survive with its current spending profile if our credit rating was reduced or if the Bank of England didn't keep printing money to buy our own debt.

The money printing must end soon, and the real challenge will then be to persuade enough foreigners to lend us their money on the promise that our children will pay it back, by forgoing vital health care and social services just to win Brown a few more votes today.

Perhaps the crunch is much closer than we have been lead to believe.

Perhaps Labour are trying to make a virtue out of a necessity.

Perhaps they have been told they can't carry on with the policies of bribing the voters by selling their children into debt.

But as ever don't believe a word these people say. Check the facts, check the details. They have form for deceit and untruths and should not be trusted.

Here we go: Dalring is now talking about borrowing at a slower rate sometime in the future when there lots of money around. ( Remember last time there was "lots of money around" it was because consumers were loading themselves with insane amounts of debt - which the govt was helping itself to in terms of VAT, stamp duty and taxation on the increased economic activity )

I should point out also that The Budget Deficit and The National Debt are not the same thing - even though Laboutr spin and dedciert masters would like you to think so. Halving the budget deficit just means diggign the hole of debt salvery slightly slower, not filling it in. And every year there will be the interest to pay on that debt ....

For the country or for the Election ?

That's the choice Alistair Darling had when putting his budget together.

Has he taken the painful decision now that will give us some chance in the coming years and not steal more from the future of our children than is now necessary ?

Or will is be the sort of budget Gordon Brown would produce. Highly political with measures designed to make life difficult for the Conservatives based on his understanding of our likely manifesto ?

I'd like to believe Alistair Darling would put the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland before the Labour party, but he wouldn't be the sort of New Labour politician we have all learnt not to trust if he did.

Frightening damage is now being done to our country, and reports are that Labour minister are busy signing 15 contracts for pet projects they want to make impossible for future governments to cancel.

As with MPs expenses and Gordon Brown's laughable attempt to rehabilitate himself, our money is likely to be w=wasted on the unqualified selfish self serving Labour career politicians who have lead us into this disaster.

I don't hold out much hope for the budget.

The only question is what will they be trying to hide from tomorrows headlines in the small print this time ?

GBP 15 billion efficieny savings - yeah right

The spin is on again.

Today's incredible news to be swallowed is the pre-budget leak ( ™ Gordon Brown ) - as opposed to the pre-budget report to grab more headlines - that government is going to magic £15 billion savings from, wait for it, efficiency savings. However its over 5 years (Trick copyright Gordon Brown in budgets 97,98,99,00,01,02,03,04,05,06,07), and of course any decisions are post election. ( Could they have been reading the polling that says the tax paying public, who still have jobs, want to see government make savings ? ) So is this £3billion a year really ? If so its a drop in the government ocean.

Despite even its small nature no one - and I mean no one - believes this, unless its accompanied by examples of cuts and redundancies. ( Remember Lord Digby Jones thinks you could drop the civil service by 50% and it would get better - so there's scope ).

But Labour won't do this, just as Brown and Johnson sacrificed our futures by not reforming civil service pensions before the last general election.

There can be only two reasons for this bit of spin:

1) So that eventual cuts don't seem to bad and are through the media cycle to allow cynical Labour to dictate the headlines it wants for the papers.
2) If no major savings are at least announced it will be impossible for the extra borrowing that Brown Darling announces to be financed. Indeed its announcement could cause a run on the pound and government bankruptcy.

Labour have destroyed our today and now they want to make sure they get your children too.

PS Beeboids - if you want to do your job, the headline should be £3billion per year - but you allow yourselves to be manipulated again. That's bias.

UK needs an extra £39billion

And China only added $40 billion to the IMF last week.

Disaster awaits us all.

Perhaps future North Sea Oil revenues should under write the government loans to RBS and HBOS ?

This should concentrate Scottish Labour minds. Since RBS and HBOS are Scottish banks, how about underwriting them with future revenues from Scottish Oil ?

I stand back and await the howls of protest .....

Labour's debt binge - the Truth about 10 years

I keep hearing Labour ministers talking about reducing debt over Labour first ten years.

You know what ? It true ! But its very, very misleading. Most people would describe it as lying. It is certainly misleading.

Why do they say they reduced debt for the first ten years so often ? The answer is they are trying to hide the spending ( fuelled by borrowing in the economy and caused by a binge in the public sector ).

See the graph from the National Statistics Office record which I have annotated below (source here ):

I think most people on looking at that graph - published by the independent National Statistics Office - on hearing Labour ministers talk about reducing debt over 10 years and looking at the graph most people would say Labour are trying to persuade people of something that is not true.

Odd that I haven't heard any BBC commentators pick up Labour ministers ( Yvette Cooper on Newsnight last night, Alistair Darling on radio 4's Today this morning ).

The truth is that Conservative spending plans were adopted for the first two years of New Labour - so the Conservatives take the credit for those years and then Gordon Brown believing he had abolished Boom and Bust failed to fix the roof whilst the sun shined.

Every time you hear this for of misleading boast from Labour make sure they are made to eat their words. The problem with Conservative politicians sometimes is they don't counter these Meme's and spin from Labour with anywhere near the vigor and determination that is needed.

England - Saving Scotland's banks and delaying independence

It is perhaps interesting to note what has happened and how it may impact politics.

The two remaining major independent banks in Scotland, HBOS and RBS, have been saved from ruin, mostly by the English tax payers, their children, their chidlrens children and their pensions.

I personally wonder if HBOS will need to be taken over by Lloyds TSB now these credit guarantees and sources of capital are in place.

There are now two candidates to buy HBOS - Lloyds TSB and the UK Govt ( ie mostly the English Govt ). I wonder how long it will take for that penny to drop. Once it does the pressure for the socialist government to buy with English tax payers money will become very high. Is there a by-election coming soon ? Surely not ....

But what this also does is blow a hole below the water line in the SNP's campaign for independence.

Lets be clear - if Scotland was independent now its choices would be a stark as Iceland's, ie who to sell your country to. ( The Icelandics look like going for the Russians ).

At the same time oil heads below $100/bbl and production from the North Sea continues its sharp decline.

There will also have been a body blow to confidence North of the Boarder.

All it takes is Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to bring home a bucket load of English pork, which would very obviously not be available for an independent in the EU Scotland.

Oddly enough I suspect this will play well for the Unionist parties, and a future Conservative governemnt will reduce the pressure for political representation in England.

So will the Union be saved ? Ultimately I doubt it as by removing the external pressures our short term self intrested politicians have been prevented from coming to a positive vision of a future fair UK based on equality between nations, and that means at the next crisis the Union may break.

PS I now wonder if Labour won't win the Glenrothes by-election. If something on HBOS was pulled out of the hat - perhaps they will. English tax payers should weep...

See also A Free Scotland would still have to beg for English cash Angus McLeod
and I think Richard Thomson of the SNP is going to take another view...

Gordon places the blue chips on the roulette table

Guido reckons the recent set of guarantees that have come out of the government are worth £10k / tax payer.

The truth is its a gamble. It could pay of, or just lose a little but we would still be ahead.

Or the economy and markets could tank and our misery be far worse than if Gordon hadn't gambled with out money. He's placing the big chips on the roulette table now and we have to see which number comes up.

Now this all sounds a bit familiar does it ? Oh yes its like all those clever financial instruments that got us into all this trouble in the first place. Fine unless the unexpected happens - which we now know it does more often than people credit.

In short (sorry about the pun) Gordon is doing what the banks did earlier that got us into this trouble. Perhaps he should ease up on the righteous indignation next time ....

PS If you really want to scare yourself witless think about what the Treasury is dreaming up in case this fails .... My guess is the temporary confiscation of savings and pensions.

Also note that the amount of money is 4 times, by the estimate of one commentator ionGuido's post, per tax payer the amount at risk in the US.

Update: Horrifyingly its begining to look like our number hasn't come up.

Yet again Radio 4's Today lets Labour off the hook

On waking up this morning I was listening to Radio 5 Live's interview of Alistair Darling. The question of national debt came up and Darling tried to blow smoke in the eyes of the interviewer by excluding Gordon Brown's various off balance sheet tricks from Debt ( and Northern Crock naturally ). R5L's man responded quickly by questioning this directly and citing other estimates in the press today which are considerably at variance with the Chancellors words.

Now Darling just refused to accept that, and may possible have said something he shouldn't have on PFI ( someone needs to check those words). But the question was asked.

Over at the Radio 4 Labour Supporters Club know as the Today programme ( where only Conservative politicians have their answers interrupted ) the same Chancellor, who must have just walked up or downstairs to the new studio, the same question but a completely supine response from Today's interviewer.

On being questioned on Debt Alistair Darling saw the danger of the follow on question and went for standard New Labour punishment of the interviewer mode. You know the one where the answer goes on long enough that you've forgotten what day of the week it is by the time he's finished, let alone what the question was. If interruption ( always so gentle and polite for Labour ministers ) then the "I think this is important" " you need to know" or such are used. And the answer is always finished with a change of subject to avoid that follow on question.

So the Today prog completely failed to ask about the staggering levels of debt in the economy that Labour have built up - because they are just no good at their jobs or its naked political bias. If they want to know how it should be done then they should tune into Radio 5 Live.

Update: For an example of alternative debt calcs see Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun who says:

He kept billions off the books by using costly and badly negotiated “Private Finance Initiatives” to build hospitals and schools.

That piled an extra £150BILLION on to State borrowing — taking the total to 45 per cent of national earnings.

And add on another £1,300billion in unfunded public sector borrowing — and £1,000billion in private borrowing for mortgages, credit cards and overdrafts.

That lot works out at around £2,500billion — or £40,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in Britain, now and for years to come.

No such challeneg on the Labour loving BBC Today prog.

Update: Guido reports (and summarises) the BBC's Robert Preston who takes the easy ride Brown was given by Marr (again) to task, and makes some key points on debt. See Guido here and Preston here. The BBC left wing machine will now move to punish Preston no doubt ...

Preston says:

As a biographer of Gordon Brown and a former FT political editor, I have kept a fairly close eye on our prime minister and on HM Treasury for many years. So, for me, there were a number of jaw dropping moments in his BBC interview yesterday with Andrew Marr.....

Darling - your barred

Reactionary snob is taking Alistair Darlings attempts to raise tax, by driving us all to drink then taxing us for it , rather to heart. He's seen his way for revenge with a pub in Leith that have barred Darling.

The suggestion is that you ask you local pub to bar him ( we need a poster someone - preferably in pdf ).

Man in a Shed is happy to recommend this as his two favourite vices - beer and single malt whisky - have just become more expensive and he will be troubled by the idea of funding the bloated state sector whilst trying to relax at the end of a long hard day.

Pass on the idea if you approve !

Update: This is now getting up a head of steam. I heard it on Radio 5 this mornign and Guido has posted on it. Guido has a link to the Devil's A4 poster download suitable for pub windows

Darlings risks GBP 182 million (of your money) per job(aka vote) in Northern Rocks Labour heartlands.

The number of North East Northern Rock employees 5,500.

The amount of tax payers money risked by Labour for reasons of political expediency GBP 100 Billion.

The amount per vote job is therefore 100,000,000,000/5500 = GBP 182 million at risk per job.

It would have been cheaper to have given each employee GBP 1 million to go home.

Surely Darling and Brown must now resign ? They are starting to make Denis Healey look talented.

Brown and Darling could force Shell and BP to leave the UK

There is a lot of emotional nonsense being spoken about Shell's profits today.

People like Unite and the AA ( for goodness sake) are trying to link petrol prices at garages to oil company profits. This of course not true. Even refining in general is less profitable - note BP selling Coryton recently to Petroplus.

Gordon Brown damaged the long term future of the North Sea oil industry as chancellor when he raised taxes and made clear that there was no longer going to be stability from the government. The problem is that areas like the North Sea require long term and high investment - you don't make it if you think the likes of Gordon Brown are just going to steal it when it suites them. Shell and BP have already made substantial moves to pull back from of the North Sea.

Now there's at least £8Billion missing from government revenues and making a popular so called windfall tax will look tempting to Darling. But remember its peoples pension schemes that own Shell and BP. So he's really stealing from peoples pensions when he does this ( not that you can expect left wing organisations like the BBC to explain this as the report from a garage forecourt having interviewed angry voters - I have no idea if they've done that this time, but I think they will ).

And there is a further risk Shell and BP may move. Shell completely to the Netherlands ( it is already registered there and its technical operations based there - the Dutch have for a long time got the better deal out of Shell ), BP to the US.

Then HMG will no longer benefit from taxing the profits that these companies make over seas. Less British people will work for these companies and out skills base will decline further.

But just because a decision is pig headily stupid in the medium to long term doesn't mean that Alistair Darling won't get permission from his master Gordon Brown to do it to keep them in their government jobs for a few more years.

Update: See this quote from Sunday 3 Feb Telegraph

"Shell is withdrawing from the North Sea operations because oil and gas reserves are in decline. On Thursday the company said it was planning a big increase in capital expenditure this year, using money from disposals to invest in more productive oil and gas fields around the world."

MiaS would argue that it is also because of uncertainty about operating in the UK created by Gordon Brown.

Apparently a lot of the energy price increase are from the Treasurey - Darling

You couldn't make this stuff up. Alistair Darling has just made himself look opportunistic, cynical and stupid all in the same move. ( See Damian Reece in todays DT ).

His "I'm a friend of the consumer" type letter to Ofgen apparently fails to take into account all the tax rises introduced by HM Treasury ! ( As well as getting a fail for basic economics in pretending not to understand that as cost of purchasing gas goes up, so the price charged for it must rise.)

What a chump.

PS He's also been caught today saying the interest rates will fall - so that the end of independence for the MPC then.

Alistair Darling spins on Energy

The bad news of higher energy prices was a major news item last week.

We had energy firms blaming the spot price and energy watch saying that in effect the energy firms should destroy share holder value by selling gas and electricity for less than they cost.

Now in typical New Labour fashion Alistair Darling is trying to spin his way out of responsibility for rising inflation by "writing a letter to Ofgem". Now this will have little effect - but it gives something to report on the news. It helps to shift some blame in the public's mind - which he can then useful and cynically use latter when question as to why inflation has taken off.

The underlying problem is that UK domestic gas production has fallen to a level than imports are now critical. This was foreseeable 10 years ago - in fact you could have read it in the Ten year forecasts that Transco produce. We have failed to build anywhere near the necessary gas storage infrastructure. Germany and France have months of storage capacity we have days. Hence you have to take what ever the spot price is.

The government has also failed to ensure that our European partners, to whom they wish to sign the sovereignty of our nation over to, have created a similarly liberalised energy market. Hence the UK is the useful idiot who can have its prices ramped up every winter to subsidise everyone else.

In short this was all foreseeable and by not doing so the Labour government is entirely responsible, not the energy trading companies.

Support for Northern Rock has to stop

We are now told that £30billion of our money is being put at risk to save the reputations of Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown over the Northern Rock disaster.

It would be a lot cheaper to have a general election and give these two men their P45s.

Surely it is time to stop sinking more public money ? And where is that money coming from anyway ?

A public service announcement

Man in a Shed has just received this in his inbox for his company and would like to share its contents with the government and public sector.

Though its is correctly pointed out on the register that such data should never be committed to CD anyway !

---

			Don't take chances with your business data
			Every second of every day, sensitive, personal and confidential information has to be exchanged to keep your business moving.
			And not just between colleagues, but also with suppliers and customers too. Whether for reasons of compliance or competitive advantage, you can’t take the chance that it could fall into the wrong hands.
			So, when it comes to SSL encryption, cutting corners is not an option.
			You need to know that your business data is protected by the strongest possible encryption, from a highly reputable source. That’s why the majority of high-street banks, retail supermarkets and mobile phone operators choose SSL certificates from VeriSign.
			VeriSign is the only major SSL provider of Server Gated Cryptography (SGC) enabled SSL certificates.
			These provide 128- or 256-bit encryption to over 99.9% of Internet users, ensuring the highest level of encryption their system can support. With SSL certificates from VeriSign, you know your data is in safe hands.

			If you'd like to talk to someone further about managing your organisation’s security please call us on 0800 032 2101, or +44 0208 6000 740 or you can email us Yours sincerely, VeriSign UK Ltd. www.verisign.co.uk

Password protection ? What type of encryption was used ?

The information is being spun into the media that the disks ( that contained most of the countries bank accounts ) were "password protected".

This phrase makes me suspicious.

Do they mean zipped with a password ? Or something a bit (no pun intended) more serrious.

Those chasing this story should ask for specifics ....

Update 22:58: And they have. Newsnight has just confirmed that the data on the two CD's was not encrypted. Its a staggering lapse.

An expert from Cambridge university has made the key point that its should not have been possible for such data to be burnt onto a CD at all !

I am shocked and dismayed -and frankly worried about fraud in the future carried out in my name, my wife's name and the name of my children.

Heads should roll ...