Brown, Iceland and statecraft
All I can say is thank God it was Iceland’s banks that collapsed while holding British deposits and not, say, China’s. Imagine the statesmanlike strength and courage it took use anti-terrorism laws to freeze the assets of a country with a population of 320,000 and no standing army. RAAAARRR! How’s that for national pride reasserted? When do we invade?
Imagine the contortions and wriggling Brown would have done to avoid describing such a catastrophe happening somewhere big as ‘effectively illegal’ and ‘completely unacceptable’. He’s very fond of saying the financial apocalypse started in America but he’s yet to make a moral judgement out loud. Is there a parallel world somewhere where a Gordon Brown is saying ‘we are freezing the assets of American companies in the United Kingdom where we can’? Is there shite.
Isn’t that the very essence of New Labour? Pushing the little kids about while holding the big lad’s coat?
Posted on October 11th, 2008 at 6:55pm under Brown
Absolutely right, and very entertaining!
The thing is that compared to the indecisiveness on the continent even standing up to the little kids can be made to look like leadership.
Yes, it’s also been interesting to see our brave boys in fourth estate pals batallion highlighting the losses sustained by local councils, charities, police authorities etc. with money in Icelandic banks.
I seem to recall a number of major banks in the US collapsing well before the Icelandic problems surfaced. Yet, given our close ties with the US (yes and I do mean in terms of bondage) and the fact that local government authorities spread their assets around different banks, its surprising that no such risks seem to have been highlighted with the collapse of Leehman Bros, Washington Mut.iual et al.
Are we really expected to believe that local government authorities, charities etc. had no money in any of these other banks which have collapsed. Pull the other one.
Its not just the politicians that are up to their armpits in smell stuff on this issue, its also the media.
Although it is possible to find interesting snippits like this one:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4926316.ece
“Questions also persist about the collapse of the Icelandic institutions, and the knock-on effects of their demise. It has emerged that the FSA told the London-based capital-markets business of Kaupthing to move some of its £20m cash pile out of a bank account held with its Icelandic parent company “several months” before the bank collapsed last week.
A senior source at Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Capital Markets, run by former KBC Peel Hunt boss Tim Cockcroft, said the cash had been moved into four or five UK bank accounts following concerns raised by the regulator.
The news suggests the regulator may have been flagging concerns about Iceland to business customers while local councils and consumers continued to deposit cash with the banks.
A handful of Treasury officials have grown concerned about the potential for conflicts of interest emerging between the advisers working on the bailout deal and the financial implications. ”
I listen to the news in vain for this peice of chicanary to be transmitted to the massess but our fouth estate seems blissfully uninterested in holding the regulator up to scrutiny for warning private businesses but not local councils or charities.