Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

An idea to stimulate economic growth without further government borrowing. Written in plain English and very easy to follow, this is the only really fresh approach out there to the intractable problems of the UK economy, and it is just beginning to be noticed in important places. Buy! Download only .99p Paperback £2.99

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Mark Carney is normally measured and careful in his pronouncements; a caution here, a warning there, encouragement too. This made his outspoken attack on the low life ethics in parts of the City, the flaws in markets driven by excess, the controls and penalties which would in future be enforced and above all the demands of the social licence as he called it, which underpins everything through which capitalism prospers in a democracy. Due to changes in the format of BBC rolling news, only clips of the speech were shown. If you have time the whole thing is worth a read over a cup of coffee. Here is a link.   MARK CARNEY MANSION HOUSE SPEECH

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The Chancellor’s announcement that he would start selling RBS shares at a loss caused the biggest stir in a fairly meaty speech yesterday at the Mansion House. His convoluted arithmetic that overall the taxpayer had made a profit out of the bank rescue programme was a pointless argument; not least because had the banks not been rescued most taxpayers would have lost most of what they possessed.It was not a project aimed at profit. It was one of survival.

He was right to say that the value now is the value which counts and that value will increase faster if the market sees a road open to the return to the private sector. The gradual break-up of more of this vulgar pipe dream to build a financial institution bigger than Great Britain itself in financial terms, will also make sense as time goes on. One thinks of Nat West and Coutts being taken out of a conglomerate which has bought these two respected banks nothing but grief.

As for the value Labour in government paid much could be said. It was too much but it is doubtful, very, that Osborne faced with a crisis beyond imagining in which both the Bank of England and the City regulators had entirely lost control, would have paid less. Indeed the reverse is possible. What is clear with hindsight is that the taxpayer should have acquired all of the shares for a total sum of £1, as the bank was completely bust, much of its balance sheet’s asset portfolio was worthless and the bank’s liabilities far exceeded any value which could be scraped together to set against them.  No doubt the calamitous impact on pension and savings funds invested in this monstrosity, if shareholders had lost everything, and the knock on effects which would have followed, were factors in setting the price at the level chosen in the heat of that unprecedented hour.