September 2008 Archives

Every time the de-stabilised financial markets twitch speculators somewhere make a fortune.

Figures just revealed show that at the height of fears over the future of HBOS dealers made £26 million in two minutes.

It happened on the morning that the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, broke the news that the bank was to be rescued by Lloyds TSB.

In the two minutes before his broadcast at 9.00am buyers bought 22 million HBOS shares for just 96p each.
As soon as the story aired, the price of those shares rocketed to 215p each.

In all, 160 million shares were traded that morning, making an overall profit of £190 million.

One trader contacted the BBC's Woman's Hour programme to say that she had, personally, earned a £34,000 bonus for two hours work at the height of the crisis.

Given that it is officially estimated that one in four takeovers involve insider dealing, it is most likely that much of this profit was not a result of smart business dealing but of simple chicanery.

Yet still no action is taken against the shysters who are making a fortune out of other people's misery.

Our Prime Minister declares that he wants to see an end to the short-selling scandals that allow rogues to making millions by simply spreading rumours.

And he also wants bank directors to take more responsibility for the dealings done in their names. In fact, he wants more transparency all round.

It is obvious to everyone that our system of financial controls - which involves the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, and which was put in place by the Scotsman himself - is useless.

So is he getting stuck in to create a new rule book?

Not at all. He and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, have instead flown off to Washington to discuss a "global" approach to controlling the sickening excesses of the financial markets.

This makes no sense at all since all banking centres will be looking to maintain an advantage over all the others in order to attract business.

What Mr. Brown is looking for in the US is not a solution to the chicanery and criminality at the heart of our financial institutions. He's looking for an excuse to do nothing.

This is, after, all the man who has constantly talked of taking a "light touch" to controlling what goes on in the City.

What our Prime Minister is seeking is a touch so light that the light-fingered who are raking in the millions will not notice it at all.

The youngest British soldier to die in Afghanistan lost his life because he was let down by his Government.

Private Ben Ford was just 18 when the vehicle in which he was travelling was destroyed by a radio-triggered mine. An inquest has been told that the 4X4 should have been fitted with a device to jam radio waves which would have saved the teenager and his colleague, Private Damian Wright who died alongside him.

Two years ago our then Home Secretary, John Reid, stood before the television cameras and issued a grim statement.

He said that the police and MI5 had foiled a terrorist plot to blow up transatlantic flights in mid-air and cause death on "an unprecedented scale".

Police officers backed up this statement by issuing details of seven flights that had been targeted by a cell of terrorists who would have used liquid bombs. Scotland Yard said it had thwarted "mass murder on an unimaginable scale".

Unfortunately, the facts do not fit the story.

And we know this in the most definitive manner known to British justice - a decision made by a jury. No snap decision either.

At the start of the new school year our children are to be officially encouraged to revive traditional playground games.

The move has been instigated by the Local Government Association which has identified a decline in the old classics because of the growth of the compensation culture and the fear that parents will sue if their youngsters cut a knee while playing hopscotch or British bulldog.

So the Association has written to town halls across the country telling them that it's time to tell the compensation culture to take a running jump.