Sad Coincidences

I am not referring to the shocking news that one of the victims of the Buffalo air crash was the widow of a victim of 9/11 - a truly awful coincidence and you cannot begin to understand the grief the family must be going through at this time.

I sincerely hope the family find a way to cope and my thoughts are with them. The next section is meant as no disrespect to the family involved.

I was referring to the more tongue in cheek shocking coincidence that Glen Moreno, Chairman of UK Financial Investment Ltd, the body set up to oversee the taxpayers 'Investments' in bailed out banks, resigning as he was found out to have links with a Lichtenstein Company who are accused of dodgy tax evasion deals.

Once again, the Government mire themselves in obviously avoidable gaffs if only they paid some attention to CVs. But perhaps that is not their modus operandi. As with cushy Watchdog jobs, being a highly paid Government 'Adviser' is really all about attaining a certain level within the Civil Service or a bank - just take Sir James Crosby as an example. He rose to be head of HBOS and so gets an invite to the 'trough' and blow me if he is not the same man who headed HBOS when being investigated for aggressive selling tactics.

Derek Wanless was invited to chair the report on public health having been the same chap who sat on the board of Northern Rock as it suffered a terminal bout of ill health. It seems that as long as you are in the 'inner circle' you get the cushy little perks.

No Coincidence

It was no sad coincidence that we get a genuinely shocked looking Alistair Darling stuttering his way through explaining why the merge between Lloyds TSB and HBOS was a good thing. In fact just a couple of days earlier, the CEO of Lloyds TSB Eric Daniels, had testified to MPs that it would prove to be a great investment. So it was indeed a large shock to find out yesterday that it had £10bn of losses.

I have blogged at length on the sorry story here but it's worth whizzing through again. HBOS is faced with going down the pan, Lloyds TSB sense an easy target and announce a takeover bid or merge. Gordon Brown panics and waives Anti-Competition Law to allow it to go ahead and when Lloyds TSB baulk, he personally intervenes at the eleventh hour to persuade Eric Daniels it's a good thing (how many nice promises of cushy jobs there, I wonder). The merger goes ahead and almost immediately there are concerns about the agreed price, losses and other business worries. Despite the fact that it could pull out of the deal and HBOS would have been rescued anyway in subsequent moves by the FSA, Lloyds goes to the Government for bail out cash that enables the anti-competitive takeover which ultimately makes the taxpayer a 43% shareholder in the new Lloyds Banking Group.

Of course, as late as December, Lord Mandelson was on the warpath against dissenters to the merger, most notably noisy Scottish politicians as it was his duty to have referred it to the Mergers Commission as the new group would have an unhealthy 28% of the UK mortgage market. Effectively, Mandelson sent a letter to these dissenters which almost threatened those who intended to legally challenge the merger and was later explained as merely advising people on how to save legal costs as they would have already have lost. A great way of explaining our legal system.

And now we have around £2bn of extra cost on this deal thanks to the losses that have surprised everyone.

More 'I Didn't Know Thats'

The Office for National Statistics reveals the blindingly obvious yet not to Ministers who are convinced they are impregnable on the Economy. As Unemployment creeps to 2m, we find that the number of foreign workers getting jobs in Britain is growing and was up by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year. No genius at maths, that would suggest to me that domestic unemployment is rising much faster then.

'British dole, for British workers', as Private Eye said last week.

Bonanza Over?

In a bid to mitigate the £2bn HBOS blow to taxpayers, Gordon Brown has come out fighting. Only this time he is doing his old 'I'll cut off my nose to spite my face' routine. Previously as Chancellor he had infuriated his old political opponent, Tony Blair, by suggesting he would forego his Ministerial pay rise. Blair, ever mindful that money was the icing on the cake for his Socialist Movement, had thrown his expensive toys around and shut him up. Well he's at it again in a vain attempt to gain some kind of popularity.

In his sights yesterday were his ordering of a review of MPs' pensions which has a £12m annual burden. No doubt this was a spiteful piece of revenge after his grilling by committees this week. It came as no coincidence to any of us that Brown was instrumental in trying to stop details of MPs' expenses getting into the public domain so we could all gasp at the appalling waste of our money there, particularly as Jaqui Smith was in the spotlight this week for brilliantly bending the system to ensure she was very, very well off. I'll bet Derek Conway is on the phone right now to work a similar scam.

No, Brown did not go and save money the obvious way - like start reviewing the incredible pension position afforded to all public workers who preferentially get a superb pension deal at taxpayers' cost while the private sector see their future getting blasted apart due to the incompetence of the same PM. That would be too much money saved and besides after creating all those extra Public Sector jobs he would look a bit silly, wouldn't he?

It's no coincidence that he already does look silly. Yet he still lives in this fantasy world that says the last 11 years of 'Stable Economy' was not a complete fantasy and yet by so many indicators, Britain is far worse off and declining ever further each day, than we were in 1997.

It's just a question of when will the voting public realise this as well?