It strikes me that Local Councils throughout the UK are quite often the repository of some of the worst forms of petty-minded bureaucratic tyranny. So you can see the appeal to the BBC which has provided a ringing defence of the financial mess in which many of these Councils now find themselves care of ill-judged financial investment in Icelandic banks! On “Today” this morning, the line being retailed was that the Councils appeal to Chancellor Darling to be treated just as ordinary investors was pretty fair given that central government has encouraged local councils to generate as much financial return as possible. No mention of the fact that investment carries risk and therefore local councils must be conservative in their investment strategies since they are investing our money. Rarely have I heard local councils being given such a doe-eyed PR makeover – even as they lose millions of rate-payers cash. You can always rely on the BBC to support incompetent Statism at every level.
And while we are at it, have you notice the way in which the BBC refers to the US financial package as a “bail-out” whilst the Brown/Darling plan is a “rescue plan”?How nice. The rehabilitation of the Great Leader is now complete as the BBC demonstrated earlier today with the news in “Today in Parliament” that even his critics were now behind him and his innate caution is now being trumpeted as his greatest strength. Wonder if that was the same caution that led the Great Leader to sell off UK gold reserves at virtually an all-time low price, for example? Guess we’ll never know because the BBC sure as hell will not brook any criticism of Prudence in these changed times. What joy it is to have a multi-channel Pravda that we must fund.
I don’t recall Western Isles Council being bailed out when they lost millions with BCCI.
If David Cameron and George Osborne don’t try to hold Gordon Brown to account then why should we expect the BBC to do so. I am really angry with the Conservative leadership, being statesmanlike may seem “adult” but they are winning no friends amongst the angry populace. If the Conservatives keep agreeing to Labour policy, why should we vote Conservative come 2010? Leading Conservatives going easy on Gordon Brown will not stop the attacks by him on the Conservatives.
NotaSheep
David Cameron’s problem here is that if he denounces the plan, the markets will take fright and the Tories will get the blame for the ensuing mess. I think he has little choice other than to publically go along with the plan for the moment.
Puff piece? Never?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660287.stm
Lawks – how much are BBC hacks paid to pen this drivel?
Now I am going to write a poem about how brilliant it is to be entering a recession.
OK, then support the plan but attack Gordon Brown for getting the UK into a worse economic position than virtually any other western economy. Gordon Brown has lied over and over again about taxation, unemployment, inflation, “lifting” people out of poverty, etc. etc. etc. I just want him held to account.
The problem here though is one of pure incompetence from the councils.
Their financial departments should have been moving money out of “at risk accounts” in to “save accounts” in Ireland as soon as it was made known the Irish would guarantee 100% of all deposits!
The fact the councils didnt do this as a matter of course smacks of shear ignorant incompetence!
Mailman
Yes Mailman, but councils are incompetent. They all have highly paid CEOs but they do this to us, their employers. I see Gordon Ramsey moved his money in time, that really says it all.
Notasheep,
When all politicians agree – beware. Cameron is now part of the sovietisation of our banking system and he provides cover to Brown when, in my view, he should be ruthlessly exposing Brown’s folly which has led to so many of our problems. I do understand that the Beeb would have attacked Cameron had he done anything BUT agree with Prudence but an opposition is supposed to oppose, not agree.
If the councils were following central government guidelines to the letter when they put their money in Icelandic banks, then Darling may well be in a legal pickle.
Frankly I wouldn’t blame a council for putting taxpayers’ money where it would earn the best rate of interest. Indeed, they may well have a duty to do so.
I would have drawn the line at BCCI, though. Any fool could see that was a dodgy outfit.
Chaps, I hate to ask this but do any of you have any knowledge of councils as either an elected member or as an officer? In general I *hate* to qualify someone’s opinion based upon their experience or knowledge, as it’s better to hear them all and decide on objective merit. But on a matter like this of pure opinion, knowledge and experience provide balancing information.
For reference, as some of you may rememeber, I am elected to a Borough council. My opinion is that council finances are gone through with a fine tooth comb and the results, good or bad, are published for all to see. The officers are always careful and cover their arses by making *all* potiential problems known.
But then my council, and all of our neighbours, are Conservative 🙂
the two councils most exposed are westminster and kent. so the bbc is presumably making these efforts to defend flagship conservative councils.
firefoxx
There was much in the financial press in March this year about the travails in Iceland and the possible ramifications for Icelandic banks. No special genius or insight on my part but I removed the major part of my deposit from Icesave then and the remainder in June. An individual had to be desperately naive – or hopelessly uninformed – to leave substantial funds (certainly anything over £35,000) with any Icelandic outfit in the last month or so. In respect of local authorities: council officers and the councillors concerned – including you apparently – should be surcharged (ah but, of course, they can’t be now can they – lucky you) for gross incompetence just short of criminality.
As to BCCI: I was working in the City at the time that this outfit operated. No institution – and I mean not one – in the City would deal with BCCI: it was an open secret that the “bank” was a fraudulent vehicle on the way to destruction: another failure of “regulation” I’m afraid.
PaulS
Even the Treasury would not insist on a council depositing surplus cash where it would receive maximum return irrespective of risk. What you’re implying is that every council in the UK should have deposited their surplus funds with the Icelandic banks based on the interest rates paid. No, I’m afraid this is down to council stupidity (and cupidity). After all, it’s not their money is it? As far as the council is concerned the council tax payer is lucky to receive such wonderful service and, if s/he doesn’t like it, s/he can bugger off!
Either these councils have collective amnesia or no one old enough to remember BCCI.
I will go for the latter; and this is also at the heart of much of the mire that we now find our economy in. The cult of yoof has pervaded all areas of government and commerce. Ministers and CEOs are in their early 40s, with inadequate experience and no memory of times past. There is very little experience and no history, so the same catastrophic errors are repeated every cycle, hence boom and bust. Brown always told those who would listen that he was Prudence Personified. But no,if he did remember the past, he ignored the lessons of history and led us down the Primrose path to this sorry state.
The spiv Cameron cant say too much about Gordon Brown`s handling of the crisis because basically, the decisions about it are too much affected by the EU, and the Conservatives dont do the EU.
NotaSheep: So FUCKING spot on. The Tories should be hammering the Scottish cunts that got us into this mess, in particular that fat one eyed one.
What a fucking debacle. Billions of pounds from Mr fucking Prudence pissed down the toilet pan by this fat incompetent wanker who can’t even be bothered to wash on a regular basis.
The Tories should have said to Brown, you’re NOT getting our support. Most people don’t want the banks bailed out. Cameron should be hammering Broon. Does Cameron think he’ll get any bounce out of this? Just like the invasion of Iraq the tories got the blame from the left.
Had they not supported the invasion, there’s a good chance Blair would have had to resign and call a general election and we might have a tory Government now and a good chance this mess wouldn’t have happened.
The Labour party funds should be seized as should the personal income of Broon and his jock mafia.
I’m just amazed that for all the shite about the Tories and 15% interest rates, nothing they did has come clsoe to this total fucking mess and the media are giving Gordon Brown a free pass.
Can we now expect every week on Questiontime for a member of the audience to remind us of the day Gordon fucking Brown signed us up to a 250 BILLION pounds debt (on top of what we already have), we have no gold because this incompetent wanker flogged it off at it’s lowest rate and he keeps pissing billions away on free computers for Chavs and giving billions more to corrupt 3rd world countries.
Iceland 250000 people and an economy based on fish. Obvious place for councils to put our money.
I wounder where the BBC has got all its television tax money hiden away.
My local council is building nice new offices. Well got to have some where to put all these new out reach workers.
Martin,
There is no point in wishing for a different government here, it would be just as tied up.The fault starts at Brussels, which if we were independent of it we could chart a course through these waters.
Original Robin: Agreed that if we were in the Euro we’d be fucked even more.
But Grodon brown has his sticky litlte unwashed paws all over this mess.
I love the way he’s gone after Iceland. WOW tough guy. But hang on, I’ve just heard some guy from the local authories say the GOVERNMENT told them to spread their money around.
Shouldn’t the Government have had recommended banks and limits on the amounts in each account?
I thought we had a government for a reason?
Martin
” . . the GOVERNMENT told them to spread their money around.”
If the government did tell them that, it’s the only sensible thing the government’s done since 1997. Because otherwise the incompetent officers (none of whom, you can rest assured, will lose their jobs or pensions) and useless councillors would have put every penny into IceSave.
Umbongo: Perhaps. But shouldn’t the Government provide some guidance as to which banks? I thought that was the job of the Bank of England? Oh hang on a certain fat one eyes twat gave that job to the FSA.
“Well got to have some where to put all these new out reach workers.”
You may snigger at this – but the most stupid posts in councils are not of the councils making. They are dictated to by Central Government – councils have to implement government policy – no matter how stupid – because if they don’t they end up loosing central government finance as well as other sanctions
This doesn’t mean that some councils don’t welcome the “positions” – but it is hardly of their making. Does anyone remember Clause 28? Now they have the opposite and are actively encouraged to promote “alternative” lifestyles.
So please before you knock your local council please remember who pulls the strings.
Jon: True. But why do all those outreach workers have to be on 50K a year? Are they any better qualified than a Nurse that gaves paid about half that?
Ther should be a rule that no local council job should exceed 30K MAX.
Most people in the private secotr earn no where near 30K so that should be more than enough.
But then I guess Nu Liebour need the votes?
Agreed Jon. I worked fairly close up with Local Authority officials in the South East and most of them hated the social engineering bollox they had forced on them by Central Government, who fiddle financial allocations to make them “fair” ie favour Labour areas.
In Health which I know better, the funding fiddles are blatantly political. Guilford Surrey gets 17% per capita below average allocation, City and Hackney get 22% above average per capita. A tame northern University department (full of jobsworth Socialist academics) gets tasked to come up with the allocation formula that favours labour constituencies, err, sorry, is “fair”.
My impression is its north/ south thing – as in the south pays the bulk of taxes and the Labour government spends the bulk in the north.
Go SNP go! – a Labour Party reliant on English votes, ha ha.
Martin | 09.10.08 – 8:38 pm |
AndrewSouthLondon | 09.10.08 – 8:42 pm |
I agree with your sentiments – I don’t want to hijack the debate away from the BBC, but the politisiation of civil servants has made councils unable to serve the public as they should.
Now the public are customers or consumers – not tax payers (in fact they are hardly ever referred to as “the public”)- I could go on but …
Intersting piece here on how the Government are using Anti-Terrorism law against Iceland!!!
“The Treasury believe that action to the detriment of the United Kingdom’s economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken by certain persons who are the government of or resident of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom.
The Treasury, in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 4 and 14 of and Schedule 3 to the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001(a), make the following Order:
Are we really so desperate that we are using Anti Terror laws against our friendly neighbours. They do say that you have no friends where money is concerned, or is it being used so that no-one has to give any information about it.
Having read the BBC report, I am wondering why the LibDem’s and Tories would be asking what is happening, they would have received this information way in advance of me being able to see it.
Secondly, it begs the question in a time of fiscal restraint, where local authorities and councils are pleading poverty, raising taxes on anything they can find that isnt screwed down, raising Council tax wherever possible, where has all this money come from, that these councils could ‘invest’ it in Icelandic banks, outside of the constraints of the FSA and other regulators.”
http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/2008/10/8/3921959.html
The local authorities appear to be supporting their case by lying. On Channel 4 News (who blew the whistle on Icelandic banks last March) repeated claims were made by local authority mouthpieces that Landsbanki etc were “Triple A” or “3 star rated” until last week – this from Moody’s
,b>London, 28 February 2008 — Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded the bank financial strength rating (“BFSR”) of Landsbanki Islands hf (“Landsbanki”) to C- from C and its long-term foreign and local currency deposit ratings to A2 from Aa3.
C, or worse C- should have indicated that the bank was too weak & should have removed the bank from a local authority’s approved list. Also A2 is a long way from Aaa. I wonder if they will be called out for lying.