There are times when I feel as if I am living in a surreal world. This morning is one of them. What is surreal is the reaction to Labour's new policy initiative yesterday.
Labour has announced that it is to look at breaking up the monopoly power of banks. I welcome that because even though this may not be an immediate vote changer for many people it is a serious attempt to challenge established power, which is what is needed. That has real long term implications.
The FT has responded by noting that:
Bank of England governor Mark Carney said on Wednesday he opposed both the idea of a “crude bonus cap” and of reducing retail banks' market share, dealing a blow to Ed Miliband's proposals to shake up the banking sector.
But that's absurd: why would Osborne's appointee jump with delight for Labour? Or a man wedded to banking think an attack on its power was appropriate? All Carney's reaction does is suggest Labour is right.
And Carney's hardly glowing with credibility. As the Guardian also note this morning:
Bank of England governor says rising market not a threat as surveyors' group predicts rises could become unsustainable.
Carney's batting on the side of the improbables there. Maybe a Canadian can't spot a UK housing bubble. Those of us who have lived in London for any time can.
And as for Cameron on banking. As the Guardian again notes:
David Cameron is to demand EU treaty reform to 'save' City of London
Prime minister to tell Angela Merkel and François Hollande he wants cast-iron legal protections for UK financial sector
The Guardian may question Labour's bank strategy (on what might be called pedantic lines of argument), but given this performance by the Bank and the Tories it makes a lot of sense.
Labour is doing what Labour should do: it is putting the establishment on the spot. When the government is kow-towing to bankers at every opportunity of course Labour is right to do this. It may not win an election by doing so but serious people will see in this policy real political significance and a statement on whose behalf Labour means to govern.
Don't doubt it, even though many seem to be doing so and no doubt there are some flaws in the detail; this is important.
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I am sure the customers of Lloyds who had the Halifax merged with their bank, without their consent will have something to say about this. This was done by a Labour government. So I see they enjoy reducing the market share of the bank.
Rich, you are talking nonsense. The last government didn’t merge Lloyds with Halifax, the chairman of Lloyds listened to Gordon Brown who recommended this, and was stupid enough to take his advice and go ahead with the merger.
I’d be the first to agree that New Labour got many things wrong, their grovelling before the ‘wonders’ of Anglo-Saxon capitalism being one of the worst. Certainly Gordon Brown was wrong in his opinion about this merger, but he didn’t force the Lloyds Board to take such a disastrous decision.
As with the rest of the banking crisis, the people responsible were the bankers themselves who, lets not forget it, were (and still are) some of the best paid people in the country. So much for the idea of paying top dollar for top talent!
Contrary to the lie continually trotted out by rightists, Labour did not cause the Banking crisis. It’s certainly the case that they stupidly went along with the light touch regulation dogma, but if the Tories had been in power they would have been even more lax in this respect than Labour.
At last! We’ve waited too long for this. But this is not just a ‘left’ issue it will unite labour with some Tory back-benchers who have been quietly calling for the same!
Even the Daily Telegraph’s dodgy economics commentator can’t understand why the public are not more angry with the banking sector. This SHOULD be an election WINNER, the fact that it probably won’t be is indicative of how far the neo-lib mendacity machine has gone in hoodwinking the broad populace.
http://www.eef.org.uk/blog/post/Competition-back-in-the-spotlight.aspx
Labour’s latest pledge is almost totally meaningless. It will only likely affect RBS and be incredibly difficult to police. Besides, it apes European competition legislation which is already in place.
It is also incredibly simlpistic – only measuring a bank’s size on it retail market share – and ignores the size of assets and liabilities a bank has, etc. As such, it does precisely zero for banking stability.
Labour’s policy is spot on. Of course the vested interests are squealing. This should go hand and hand with reducing the power of the “City of London”.
Largely irrelevant.
Labour will fail to implement any meaningful legislation, all our politicians are bought and paid for. Like all good dogs, they lick their master and roll-over to have their belly tickled.
If they don watch it the ¨city of london¨ will secede from the union, hopefully taking their servants and dogs with them.
Just look at how, when in power, they filled their masters coffers with loads of taxpayers cash, to lend to others to keep the economy churning, which the bank[sters] then used to fill their balance sheets and kept to themselves. Except for going on a derivatives party.