The 'independence' of the Bank of England was an interesting experiment while it lasted. But what role is there now for Mervyn King, since The Right Honourable Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister-cum-Chancellor of the Exchequer, has in effect added the Governorship of the Bank of England and the chief executorship of British banking to his growing portfolio of jobs?
How long before Mr King does the honourable thing by handing in his resignation in protest at being overruled in his battle to achieve 2% inflation, a target imposed by the Right Honourable Gordon Brown? If he does resign, he will surely gain some grudging respect for at least being true to a point of principle. But when did honour and principle last have anything to do with banking or politics or any other part of public life in Britain?
There are too many breathtaking aspects of the Government's partial nationalisation of the UK banking system for any one observer to cope with in any single piece of comment. For what it's worth, here are some of my own random thoughts.
One, given Government's track record for ruining everything it turns its attention to (education, health, the armed forces, the Millennium Dome, add your own favourite to the list), why does everyone clamour for yet more Government intervention?
Two, if the Prime Minister had called a general election in the autumn of 2007, and announced his intention to borrow around £100bn to nationalise the banking system, would we have laughed ourselves silly, thinking it was a post-modern political joke, and re-elected him? Or would we have believed him and kicked him out for being a hard-left socialist wolf in centrist clothing?
Three, does anyone truly believe we are in for a return to 'normality' in lending? Forget it. With the son of the manse firmly in charge of not only the public sector but also the private sector purse strings, Christmas will most likely be cancelled as overdrafts and credit cards become more difficult to agree, and limits on existing ones are cut. It is as if we are travelling backwards in a Brownian time machine, firstly seeking to recreate pre-Thatcher Britain but now heading firmly for the 1920s and beyond, when threadbare, make do and mend, and breaking the ice in the washbowl in your bedroom were the order of the day.
If you combine the growing economic plight with the ever increasing intrusion into our everyday private lives (passport and travel monitoring, CCTV cameras everywhere, the proposal that GCHQ have a copy of every email and text message) you must surely come to one conclusion. We must have pity on the poor east Europeans who waited so long to escape the horrors of Communism, only to find most of them being replicated in their adopted homeland...
"But when did honour and principle last have anything to do with banking or politics or any other part of public life in Britain?"
Let me think about that one!
Posted by: Jeremy Jacobs | October 20, 2008 at 09:13 AM