Events have moved so fast this week that there are a whole string of questions that we have not really thought about. For instance, when will the government sell off its stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and the bank to be created by the TSB-Lloyds HBOS merger?
Obviously, the government would be foolish to announce the schedule that it is working towards as the answer will depend on market conditions. But it doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask whether the parties’ manifestos at the next election will contain a commitment to place these shares on the market before the end of the next parliament, which will in all likelihood be in 2014.
It will be an interesting ideologically canary in the coal mine to see whether any party is prepared to pledge to do this. If they are not, it will be proof that the political plates really have shifted.
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