Out of the corner of my eye

Our government is doing what it does best: farming off national interests to privately run enterprises. The new “UK Financial Investments Limited” company formed by the Treasury to look after the interests of the Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB will be headed by Sir Philip Hampton, the former finance director of, er, Lloyds TSB. The BBC’s Robert Peston comments that “Hampton, who is a shrewd banker, not only thinks that these [the Treasury’s insistence that the banks must keep the lending taps open as the economy contracts] are reconcilable ambitions, but that the interests of his new company will be closely aligned with those of other shareholders in the banks. Which is as much to say that he could easily find himself siding with the City and not with ministers, if there were a dispute over - for example - whether the banks were lending quite enough to those viewed in Westminster as deserving cases.”

I’m sure he’ll look out for the common good then and, in also taking stewardship of the good ol’ Northern Rock, will do his best to ensure homeowners aren’t left out in the cold. Right?

In other news, the Liberal Democrats issued a statement about Britain’s terrible legacy of personal debt addiction. Nick Clegg called for a media blitz via the BBC, launching “a campaign of public education through all its media channels, directing people to the appropriate advice and information to manage their finance.”

“We need to see a huge publicity blitz on this issue from the BBC. If public sector broadcasting is to mean anything, it should mean stepping up to help in a public crisis.”

He also stated that the Liberal Democrats would introduce a 4p cut in the basic rate of income tax, paid for by closing tax loopholes benefitting the wealthy. Along the same lines as the successful platform being run by Barack Obama in the United States, this is in direct contradiction to Labour’s abolishment of the 10p rate that reduced the income of millions of low-earning people in the UK earlier this year. I support it wholeheartedly.