If you want proof that we have not got over our banking crisis, you need look no further than the reaction to Mervyn King’s Today programme lecture last week. Almost all of it reflected — although it did not, of course, directly express — the rage of bankers at the Governor’s criticisms. ‘Already we see vested interests rise up to defend their bonuses and profits,’ said Sir Mervyn. They still find plenty of allies in the media to do so. Comment focused on how King’s own mea culpa had not been big enough. But the most important, virtually unreported point his lecture made was that none of the problems which became apparent in 2007 is yet solved. The troubles of the euro area may bring them all back. What would happen then? In particular, Sir Mervyn wants to separate essential banking services from the casino elements, breaking the implicit guarantee of the latter which is forced on governments by the overriding need to save the former. It is still not clear whether the government will dare to enforce this separation by law. Until it does, we could be caught at any time. When one looks at Greece, one realises that ‘any time’ could start next week.
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How enjoyable to hear Peter Mandelson telling us that ‘more Europe’ is the answer to the post-electoral travails of the eurozone. To understand what happened to Italy and Greece when, last year, they had prime ministers with Brussels or Frankfurt experience forced upon them unelected, one must bear in mind that, if we had been in the euro, the same fate could have befallen us. Who would have fitted the bill better than Lord Mandelson?
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This column was against the deknighting of Fred Goodwin. It was not so much that he did not deserve to lose his title, rather that mob justice (even when dressed up by civil servants on the Honours Forfeiture Committee) is ugly and semi-random. Why Goodwin, but none of the others? This view is confirmed by a ministerial answer in the House of Lords last month elicited by Lord Astor (who happens to be David Cameron’s stepfather-in-law). He wanted to know whether the government intended to appoint a new chairman of the committee which recommends all arts and media honours. No, said the minister, the chairman is staying on sine die ‘to provide continuity’. The chairman is Lord Stevenson of Coddenham (who is a knight as well as a peer). He was chairman of HBOS from 2001-09. HBOS lost £10 billion in his last year there. The taxpayer had to rescue it. Far from forfeiting his knighthood or barony, Lord Stevenson is still handing them out.
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As is often quoted, St Augustine, living with a woman not his wife, used to pray ‘Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.’ Now it looks as if David Cameron thinks it prudent not to push ahead with gay marriage for the time being. His government is saying, in effect, ‘Lord, make us sinful, but not yet.’
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‘The Supreme Court’. What a detestable phrase that should be to British ears. We were a freer country when our highest legal authority was the judicial committee of the upper house of the High Court of Parliament. Why is it better for judges, effectively self-appointing and backed by an international system at Strasbourg of their own devising, to make ultimate decisions over us as if Parliament were their enemy? Walking in Parliament Square past the Court’s grand building the other day (the old law lords needed only a modest committee room), I noticed a poem by Andrew Motion carved in the Court’s honour on the benches outside. ‘…stone cut, then brought/ To frame the letter of our four nations’ law,’ he drones. What four nations? Northern Ireland is not a nation and nor, from the point of view of a legal system, is Wales. ‘A thousand years of judgement stretch behind’: behind, yes, but not into the future. What has been deliberately sacrificed is the idea that one kingdom (not four nations) frames its own law without the intervention of any external power.
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The ‘Jewish vote’, a concept beloved of people who cannot count, is so small in this country that it probably makes a difference in fewer than half a dozen parliamentary constituencies, especially since Jews rarely form a bloc. Partly for this reason, perhaps, Ken Livingstone decided consistently that he could insult Jews and hope to pick up the much more numerous Muslim votes by doing so. He refused all entreaties in the mayoral campaign, including those from active Labour-supporting Jews, to be less offensive to them. As a result, he created a Jewish vote. The London turnout was highest in Barnet and Camden, where Jews concentrate, and it swung, against the trend, to Boris Johnson. It would be no more than justice if it was the Jews wot lost it for Ken.
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Extracts from the essential BBC phrasebook: politicians always ‘embrace’ the left, ‘tack to’ the centre, but ‘lurch’ to the right.
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You often read that the life of a country vicar is peaceful and undemanding. If so, why are so few clergy any good at it? John Lambourne, the vicar of our neighbouring parish of Salehurst, who died last week, was one of those few. He was no intellectual; possibly he was not even particularly holy. But he got people who had not given the subject much thought to come to church. Once they came, they tended to stay. His church can seat more than 400, and it was standing-room only on high days. In the pub, or at the rugby club, or among farmers, or at schools, or blessing hounds, Mr Lambourne had the ability to talk to people in a way which they enjoyed and respected. He was part of the life and soul of the place. As a result, he stayed for 30 years, defying all diocesan attempts to get him out. He had the pastoral gift. A pastor, of course, is a shepherd. John knew how to make sure that his sheep were hefted.
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