On a rocky road
It is extraordinary to see the passion surrounding Newcastle United. By contrast over the years football supporters in Suffolk have learned to be rather more sanguine about the prospects for Ipswich Town!
Looking at all those shirts emblazed with Northern Rock, the very best that Messrs Brown and Darling can hope for is a draw in terms of public opinion. However tempting it is to explore the parallel of the team manager being fired (again) let us confine us to the world of nationalisation, administration or securitisation.
William Hague, at a very enjoyable dinner for Conservative MPs last week, made the point that one of the great revelations of 2007 was the inability of Gordon Brown to make decisions. Instead of cutting the losses last autumn and selling the Northern Rock to the private sector, we have had months of shilly shallying deeply damaging to the image of the British banking sector, and banking regulations. Now it would appear (Brussels willing) the debts are to be effectively guaranteed, as are the deposits, whilst a sale is being orchestrated to the private sector. For the taxpayer it will be most likely be very expensive indeed, compared with four months ago. The failure of Northern Rock was due to the malfunctioning of the so-called tripartite system, a Brown-Balls invention, whereby neither the FSA, the Treasury nor the Bank of England took the lead to minimise the fallout. Now the Government wants to strengthen the powers of the FSA, when it should be the Bank of England surveying liquidity with eagle eyes, and acting pre-emptively. Poor Gordon will do anything to avoid the word nationalisation, so inappropriately endorsed by the Liberal Democrats, yet the taxpayer will certainly be massively involved.
Life is suddenly becoming rather expensive for the taxpayer; food, fuel and council taxes are being noticed as never before in the past decade, and now governmental procrastination may lead to the biggest taxpayer exposure in history.
PS. Are people really noticing? Well last week I talked about a town council by-election in my constituency in what until recently was the home of many Labour supporters. There was not exactly a massive desire to vote, but for those who did an incredible 70% voted Conservative.