Banking Crisis: The Irish Question
Ever since Cromwell and many others knocked it about a bit (quite murderously and a lot in reality) Ireland has been a bit of a thorny question for mainland Brits.
Now, it’s getting very serious. Where the IRA may have failed to kill, bomb, terrorise and generally drive out absentee British landowners, investors, soldiers and those loutish Brit tourists…the Euro may do just that.
The Dublin Boat Show is running this week. There is deep despondency and resentment on the trade stands as the truth bites. Sterling has slipped so far down against the Euro (Ireland dropped the punt Éireannach in favour of the Euro in 1999) that four caffeine and tonnes of sugar-based soft drinks almost bankrupted one stand staffer. He reports he hasn’t had a drink all week since his mortgage company will not give him a further advance to buy a pint of Guinness.
Dark days indeed. A prominent British Marine Trades official was heard to mutter something about the “bogtroters” punching above their fiscal weight. Old prejudices die hard.
Meanwhile, back in the Toy Town which was once known as The City of London comes confirmation of the news Anorak gave you 18 long, terrifying, months ago as Northern Rock started its inexorable slide into the oil-flecked, cold and grey Northumbria sea, eventually crashing to join Dogger Bank on the coal-stained bed.
WE told you then and the Anorak alarm bells were shrilling… There were whispers Anorak was alarmist…
Too right–
Britain’s national debt will rise by £1 trillion – to levels equivalent to immediately after the Second World War – once the monstrous debts of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group (that’s while skipping over Northern Millstone) are included.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says it will list the liabilities of both reeling part-nationalised banks on the UK’s balance sheet, adding between £1 trillion – one thousand billion – and £1.5 trillion to public-sector net debt.
..and still no prosecutions?
Time to bring back the Gallows Gate tradition at the entrance to all City finance sectors?
Will Gordon Brown’s official departure portrait set to hang in No !0 Downing Street show him dancing wildly to the skirl of the pipes as London’s banking elite continue to give the taxpayer the finger while burning £50 notes and shredding the paper trail?
Posted: 20th, February 2009 | In: Money Comments (10) | TrackBack | Permalink
