Gordon Brown has been thrusting himself about the world stage as he tries, unsuccessfully in my opinion, to appear like a sort of financial guru. I honestly believe that many world leaders are laughing at him behind his back. Only someone as naive and self-obsessed as Gordon could run around having virtually single-handedly destroyed the UK economy and think he is King Economy. The man is a fool, but then most objective British citizens already know that. Anyway, let me get to my point. As we all know, the Labour government spin machine always leaks its own announcements early so that they can guage ‘public opinion’, normally expressed by what the newspapers say (rather than the public), before making any final tweaks to their policy announcements. However, if the leaks are...

FACT One: The latest banking “screw your customer” policy is insisting small, medium and large business pay a sizeable percentage above the LIBOR rate for commercial loans. That is, not at the usual Bank of England rate plus a couple of percent. Fact Two: Braver accountants are telling Business Accountant Managers to get stuffed and switching accounts to the banks which have not yet turned that screw. Meanwhile, back in fat cat country: When news of the Northern Rock debauch broke Anorak asked two questions: Who was responsible and accountable. Answer? Every-one Who would be brought to book and who would press criminal charges? Answer? No-one Rumour turned to meltdown but today comes confirmation of what was always suspected; evidence of a culture which gave its chiefs...

ALISTAIR Darling writers a letter embargoed until June 2010: Dear Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB investor, “The investments that you made in good faith never existed. The money was used in a futile attempt to recover losses incurred by me in the hope that I could repay everyone who invested.” “I acted on my own in this deception. My wife and family were entirely unaware of my actions. “My actions have been totally unforgivable and to any normal person unfathomable. I will remain eternally sorry for the pain and distress I have caused to each and every one of you.” Ooops! The words are in fact those of one David Atkinson, although they may appear again at a later date Mr Atkinson is being investigated by police over claims he conned...

Rapid, coordinated and concerted action is needed to combat the global economic downturn Gordon Brown said today as he paved the way for an expected announcement on tax cuts.In a Commons statement on the weekend's first ever meeting of the G20 group of world leaders in Washington, the prime minister said there was an "emerging consensus" on the need for a broad and concerted international macroeconomic policy response to the financial crisis."The more coordinated the action the greater the benefit to each country will be," he said. "But I believe the emerging consensus across the world – from the IMF itself and from government of left and right, and in developed and developing countries – is that we should take rapid coordinated and concerted action through the use of budgetary...

In the UK Mr George Osborne MP, the Conservative opposition finance spokesman (pictured above) has defended his warning in a recent interview that sterling could be about to collapse, saying it was his job to tell the truth about the consequences of ballooning Government debt. The Shadow Chancellor stated that increased public borrowing was already making the currency “less attractive” and there was a risk of a “run on the pound”. His comments have been criticised by business leaders as well as by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat finance spokesman. With the currency markets due to reopen today, Mr Osborne dismissed suggestions that he had “talked down the pound” and re-stated his “duty to tell the...

The pre-budget report is due to be published a week on Monday, it was revealed...

Two reports have concluded that no individual member of staff was to blame for last year's child benefit data loss.Reports by the Independent Police Complaints Commission on the original data loss, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (the 'Poynter' review) on the wider question of data protection, revealed systematic and institutionalised failings within the HMRC department.The Poynter review identified low morale in HMRC; said there needs to be a better focus on engaging with staff; and recommended HMRC should consider redeploying staff to improve services and increase tax yield rather than continuing with job cuts.The Chancellor Alistair Darling announced at the time that £155m will be needed over three years to implement the Poynter recommendations. But, unfortunately, no new money is being...

Banking chiefs have reportedly told UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling (pictured above) that they will not be passing on any further interest rate cuts to struggling homeowners and small businesses. High Street banks warned the government that profit margins were already “desperately thin” and that “they were not charities”. This latest piece of arrogance on the part of the Banks will anger taxpayers who have already footed the bill for the Government’s £37 billion bail out of HBOS,  Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB as well as Northern Rock. Last week the Chancellor hauled Bank bosses into the Treasury and told them that an angry public expected more for the bail out. He related his “deep concern” that banks were not doing...

Well I have argued that there needs to be a combination of monetary and fiscal cuts in order that the economy can receive a well needed stimulus, although I am not naive enough to believe that it will stave off a recession. This country is already in a recession, even if the official measures used to determine a “real” recession have not yet been met, all we can do is try to lessen the impact on people, jobs and business. Gordon Brown has indicated over the weekend that he believes fiscal policy should include tax cuts and rumours abound as to the extent of such cuts, with estimates of £480 per person through to an annual estimate of £15bn in tax cuts. Whatever the case, there are two things which I am wary of. The first, that Gordon Brown has a habit of double counting...

Is Gordon finally going to listen to Vince Cable and the Lib Dem Treasury team? After months years of ignoring Vince Cable's warnings over the banking sector, and now for a couple of months rejecting Lib Dem pleas to cut income tax it appears he has not ruled it out and may be making an announcement soon. With Dave and George planning to announce plans to call for a cut in Business rates to...

Britain's banks finally responded to growing public and political pressure yesterday to pass on to their customers the full 1.5 percentage point cut in interest rates. After an early morning meeting with the chancellor, Alistair Darling, the UK's biggest lenders yesterday came out one by one and flipped him the bird before running off down Whitehall. By mid afternoon each of the banks that had sought help from the government's £37bn bail-out had mooned in the direction of the Chancellor and invited the Treasury to kiss their lily white arses. Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the move. Subscribe in a...

The boss of Britain's biggest supermarket chain put pressure on the monetary policy committee to slash interest rates at a private meeting with the Bank of England's governor, Mervyn King, in the days leading up to this week's unprecedented 1.5 percentage point rate cut, the Guardian can reveal.Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, outlined his concerns about the economy and argued for a big cut in the cost of borrowing to help restore consumer confidence. Details of the breakfast-time meeting in Threadneedle Street emerged as the chancellor, Alistair Darling, ordered Britain's major high street banks and mortgage lenders to slash their borrowing costs by the full 1.5 points - and most of the banks complied.Darling summoned the bank bosses to the Treasury yesterday morning and...

Alistair Darling has today confirmed the government is to provide £800m of compensation to people who lost money in Icelandic bank Landsbanki.The chancellor's written parliamentary statement comes a month after Darling promised 230,000 private British savers with Icelandic accounts that their money would be safe despite the collapse of Landsbanki, the country's second largest bank, which runs the internet-only institution, Icesave."On 8 October 2008, I announced to parliament that the government would ensure that no depositor in Icesave, the internet product made available by the UK branch of the Icelandic bank, Landsbanki, would lose any money as a result of the closure of Icesave. I have today laid a Treasury minute to explain several contingent liabilities into which the government...

We’ve been waiting with interest to see just how the government plans to run its stakes in major banks without turning Alistair Darling into a permanently sleepless android; yesterday they announced the creation of a new “arm’s length” company, UK Financial Investments Ltd (UKFI), to manage all our taxpayer money in HBOS, Northern Rock and the rest. Treasury Committee chairman John McFall asked if the plans meant the taxpayer was being taken for “a mug” if you read the Times, or “a monkey” if you read the FT - either way, it doesn’t sound nice! But are his fears necessary? If you believe Mervyn King, this whole kerfuffle could be quite the moneyspinner: “This is an investment in the banking system which I believe in the end will...

When Gordon Brown became Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of his first tasks was to raid the pensions of the private sector, something that has provided the exchequer additional income of over £10bn every year since. This put pay to many private sector, final salary schemes. Meanwhile the public sector, which of course includes politicians, have had no corresponding adjustments to their own final salary scheme pensions. So much for the Gordon Brown mantra of a “fairer Britain”, as with so many things he says, they are full of promise and have little or no substance. The latest figures suggest that public sector pensions are worth more than 15 times those of private sector workers. So whilst the private sector has had to grasp the nettle and accept that final salary...

Yesterday, I wrote an article suggesting how this government could reduce taxes to help stimulate growth in the economy. This was partly a Keynesian approach, given I argued that it was possible that these tax cuts could be self-funding, if my proposals worked. The reason for this was, if we do nothing, there is likely to be a significant surge of people claiming benefits, rather than generating income for government coffers. My proposal was, if the government was going to borrow to invest, they would be better off doing so, with a natural stimulus, rather than bringing forward capital building projects which would only benefit a small section of the economy. My proposal, amongst other things, was that government should reduce the basic rate of personal tax by 5%. Over a period of 3...

Alistair Darling calls on oil companies to pass on lower costs to consumers by cutting petrol prices as oil giant smashes forecasts with 71% surge in...

At prime ministers questions time, Gordon Brown, once again, decided to take all the credit for “creating 3 million new jobs” and none of the responsibility for the ‘bust’ brought about by the credit funded boom that was his creation. Instead, he avoided all of the questions he was asked and once again, came out with the same old mantra, that the problem was the fault of the Americans and the bankers. Nothing new there then. He did imply, however, that he believed that the government should invest in times of recession, a sort of embracing of the Keynesian approach. However, John Maynard Keynes did not suggest that government should simply spend, but that there should be a balance. He also argued, that it was possible that if government used borrowed money wisely,...

Today Gordon Brown will announce his plans to increase borrowing and spending in an attempt to reduce some of the fallout from eleven years of his financial incompetence. The plans will be confirmed on Wednesday in Alistair Darling's announcement that he will be re-writing Gordon Brown's Golden rules. In other words the government has failed to meet their own levels of financial responsibility and they are now moving the goal posts. Unfortunately for the country, if such a football pitch existed, the opposing goalkeepers would struggle to see each other on a clear day.I don't know if these measures will be good or bad for the country, but what I do know is that Gordon Brown is not the man to get us out of the hole he has dug. He will say today:"We will and can allow borrowing to rise to...