Comrades, come rally. Can scarcely believe this but Telegraph is reporting that Northern Rock has been taken into public ownership after the high-profile Virgin bid was judged to be "out of the ballpark" in terms of value to the taxpayer.
Apparently, in an "acrimonious "conversation this afternoon with Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, broke the news that the entrepreneur's demands were impossible for the Government to accept.
As late as Saturday, Mr Darling and the Prime Minister had hoped a private-sector deal to rescue the troubled bank could still be achieved without compromising public funds. But by Sunday morning, it came apparent that Sir Richard's offer, and a second bid from the Rock's board, the only deals still on the table, involved far too great a public subsidy, with limited returns to the taxpayer.The announcement that Northern Rock would, despite Gordon Brown's increasingly desperate efforts to secure a private sector deal, be nationalised after all came after a weekend of hurried phone calls, cancelled holidays and rushed meetings. About, er , bloody time.......The bad news ,of course, is that the nationalisation is only "temporary."
Sunday, 17 February 2008
NORTHERN ROCK NATIONALISED!
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8 comments:
I'm sorry, Comrade Press, but I must rebuke you (in an entirely Fraternal way, you understand) for using the N-word. Brother Darling avoided the N-word for over 40 minutes as he made his announcement and then faced questions from the running dogs of the capitalist press. The correct usage is 'public ownership', you know, like 'social justice', 'a decent wage', that sort of thing. We both know it's meaningless pap but it's warm, cuddly, non-frightening pap. Please be careful in future or the Central Committee may be forced to take action!
Public ownership - nationalisation.Let's not split hairs
Susan, do you think this is a seminal moment?, the point where neo-liberalism was stopped in its tracks, however grudgingly or a strategic pause ready for the next phase. There is no doubt in other areas, it is full steam ahead for a US style neo-liberal welfare system, no pauses there, similarly in the NHS with its Polyclinics as corporate trojan horses.
anyway, interesting times ...
No,I'm afraid it's just pragmatism.But in the long-term it could be interesting......
Sorry, 'Frenetic', you can calm down. Northern Eggshell doesn't even count as a tiddler in the international Banking world. Banks, like other businesses, go bust on a fairly constant basis, that is why capitalism is so excellent because, like nature, it kills off the sick and weedy and renews itself.
The only seminal thing about this entire imbroglio is that, like Norman Lamont's infamous stumble out of the ERM, it spells the end of this Labour-lite government. Not least because over the next year, and just before the next election, there will be a fairly hefty loss of jobs in the North East which will produce an endless series of 'shock-horror' headlines likely to result in several Labour bums being shifted off their perches in Westminster.
So it's not all bad!
Well, Martin Jaques, one of the first intellectual cheerleaders for Blairism, (now recanted) through the journal Marxism Today, thinks it is the former.
Frenetic
Northern Rock's rescue is part of a geopolitical sea change
This is no blip. The global economic crisis will burst the bubble of free-market doctrine and force states to take a more active role
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/18/northernrock.alistairdarling
Anon, would you care to take a small wager on that?
I'm glad to hear Martin J has recanted.As I said, in the long-term it could be a seminal moment. Not least for those New Labour drones to whom the word nationalisation is almost up there with necrophilia as something to be abhorred.....
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