Subscribe to The Spectator

Friday 10 February 2012

Latest issue

Buy the current issue

Jobs at Telegraph

Tuesday, 15th January 2008

Between a Rock and a hard place

James Forsyth 8:54am

Rachel Sylvester has a typically eloquent and perceptive piece on the political ramifications of nationalising Northern Rock in the Telegraph today. As Sylvester points out the government has to come up with a solution before the end of February when the six month period for state aid mandated by the European Union runs out.

The problem isn’t so much nationalisation per se but the fact that it was so clearly the government’s least preferred option. Reading Hansard one is struck by the venom with which the Liberal Democrats were attacked for first floating the idea. The political effect in the North East is going to be magnified by the fact that it was local MPs such as Jim Cousins who led the charge against it.

 

Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Alex Massie | Melanie Phillips | Faith Based | Cappuccino Culture

Actions: Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (2) | Subscribe

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments Post comment

Scunner

January 15th, 2008 9:36am Report this comment

May I compliment you on the least original headline in the history of the media.

David Lindsay

January 15th, 2008 3:35pm Report this comment

The Lib Dems have made extravagant predictions in the past about a number of seats in the North East, including Cousins's. They've never been able to deliver, because in this part of the country they are the party of municipal class war against the workers and the public sector. In Newcastle, they are currently engaged in a sort of ethnic cleansing of the working classes out of their own marginal or target wards. If a London Borough were doing it, then it would be front page news. If Northern Rock can be nationalised, then so should be the rip-off utilities and public transport network, increasingly owned from abroad while Britain laughably purports to be a sovereign state under such circumstances. But of that, no doubt, another time. As the old Clause IV:iv might have put it, “the most equitable” and “the best obtainable” form of “the common ownership” of Northern Rock would be as the locally-based mutual building society back into which the Government should turn it as soon as possible after a purely preliminary and transitional nationalisation.

Post comment

Back to top

Cartoons

Tag Cloud

Coffee House archive

sponsored links

Spectator recommends

Spectator classifieds

THE PRESENT FINDER

1,700 Unusual Christmas Presents Request Catalogue 01935 815 195 Quote SPEC10 for 10% discount www.presentfinder.co.uk

OLIVE BRANCH FLORISTS

Pimilco based Florist with online ordering Web: www.olivebranch.net Tel: 020 7630 1868 Fax: 020 7233 8844

RUFFS Bespoke Signet rings

62 Shore Road, Warsash, Southampton, SO31 9FT Telephone: 01489 578867 Web site: www.ruffs.co.uk