PLAID is right to call for any banking reform to benefit small businesses. It is very important that the Banking White Paper does not water down proposals for the separation of retail and investment banking interests which will protect ordinary customers money.
That said, few outside the Westminster village will be shocked to discover that the wealthy banking lobby have successfully in persuaded the Con-Dems to relax recommendations from the Independent Commission on Banking. These recommendations related to enforcing a separation between retail banks, which hold savers deposits, and investment banks which use investors funds to make money (casino banking).
Plaid also called for an end to credit default swaps for businesses, warning that small companies have been mis-sold complex financial products by banks and then have found themselves in financial difficulty afterwards. A complete separation of retail and investment banking interests should provide significantly better protection for customers and small businesses and should take much of the risk out of banking.
We should never again allow ourselves to be in the situation where private sector investment banker's failures can effectively bring the economy crashing down on the rest of us. Retail banks where consumers, including families and small businesses, deposit their savings need to be protected thus ensuring their long-term sustainability.
All pretty sensible stuff, the bad news is that the banking lobby already appear to have been busy persuading the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to water down the recommendations of the independent commission on banking. The problem is that weakened proposals may not protect small businesses who have been mis-sold complex financial products in recent years and some of whom may never see their money again.
Plaid Cymru has long argued that banks should not have interests and risks which could be to the detriment of the entire sector and to the wider economy. The problem is that when New Labour had their noses in the trough (between 1997 and 2010) the importance of the financial sector grew from 11% of the total economy to more than 18%.
This unbalanced the economy largely because New Labour (and the Conservative Government's before them) turned their backs on the manufacturing sector, something that hit the Welsh economy and our manufacturing sector badly and ensured that an even greater inequality between London and the rest of the UK. This is one of the reasons why the UK was hit so badly when the crash came and has been struggling to recover since.
Interestingly enough a recent poll in the Independent on Sunday (17.06.2012) revealed that 59% thought that George Osborne is out of touch with the public (20% disagreed and 21% didn't know), 25% thought that he is leading the country's economy in the right direction (46% disagreed, 29% didn't know). Some 52% thought he was arrogant (24% disagreed and 24% didn't know) and 48% thought that he had made too many mistakes to be taken seriously (25% disagreed and 26% didn't know).
Additionally 25% agreed that George was doing a good job in difficult times - some 46% disagreed and 27% didn't know. The final poll question asked whether citizen Osborne is too posh to understand the financial pressures on ordinary people – 55% agreed, 23% disagreed and 22% didn't know.
Showing posts with label Independent of Sunday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Independent of Sunday. Show all posts
Monday, 18 June 2012
Sunday, 16 October 2011
WELL WHAT CAN YOU SAY AFTER THAT?
I am still in a profound state of shock after Saturday mornings referee related events 11,500 miles south of where I watched the game. Yesterday afternoon at the football, many in the crowd of Newport County supporters were in a similar state. James Corrigan of the Independent on Sunday has I feel summed up what many people in Wales are feeling, I repost it in it's entirety:
Bitter doesn't even begin to describe the sheer scale of Welsh grievance
With all the abuse heading in his direction, I wouldn't be Alain Rolland for all the croissants in Ireland. However unfair, however unjust, the taunts concerning his French ancestry will carry on throughout my lifetime and, undoubtedly, that of my four-year-old son as well.
I can't explain what it was like to be Welsh on the morning of Saturday 15 October 2011. We don't need to revert to war, economics, death or life for any hyperbolic baloney. It was sport at its most elemental, which evoked a criss-cross of emotions that will forever pattern the nation's sporting heart.
Somewhere in a corner of the land of a white cloud which will never be any longer, or indeed any less white, Andy Haden knew that his sentence of recrimination was finally at an end. Haden, of course, was the All Black lock-forward who leapt out of that line-out at the Arms Park 33 years ago, causing another panicking referee to award a penalty to deny Wales victory. That glory would merely have been famous – this would have been immortal.
How do Wales react now? Some genuises, probably in Britain's very own media, will do the usual trick of employing the damnable powers of hindsight to point out that when it truly mattered Wales fell short of the miracle which dangled like the most joyous apple at Eden Park.
Let them talk about James Hook's missed penalties, Stephen Jones's hit post, the drop goal which was begged to make Jonny Wilkinson's seem like a backheel in the local park. Let them talk about the International Rugby Board's directive to the refs to show zero tolerance in regard of tackles deemed dangerous.
What a laugh that is. The IRB, the most toothless governing body in any big-time sport, coming over all big man and sticking up for their official. The IRB happen to reel off more ignored directives than the banking system. Yes, let them say what they want. And let the patronising of "a little country" go into its inevitable overdrive. In Wales we won't listen. We will carry this injustice like a badge of honour.
We happen to be good losers – we've been forced to be – and the two aspects about this loss which were good were the character and the grievance. However vehementlythe wannabe Vince Lombardis out there will insist it's only about the winning, that won't mean a hill of daffodils where I'm from. It hurt. It bloody hurt. The tears of our toddlers simply summed up our gloom.
I made contact with Sam Warburton's twin brother, Ben, as the desperation submerged. "Gutted, mate," was his response. There was nothing more to be said. No, nobody should escape the merciless reach of the rulebook just because of their reputation. Sam Warbuton's tackle was an instant,the sort of instant which only sport can produce, and the referee had to make a call. In one sense, I applaud Rolland for acting as he saw fit, for putting the regulations he is conditioned to regard as gospel before the qualities of the individual. But you can't escape the sporting truth: this was wrong on every count. In the head, in the heart, in the context. Everything.
So where do Wales go from here? To a third- and fourth-place play-off. And I wouldn't be surprised if we filled the Millennium Stadium again. But then, when that consoling hero-worship subsides, Warren Gatland has to sit down and decide on his future. The All Blacks will come knocking, be sure of it, and the Wales head coach will face a choice from the sickest imagination of Beelzebub. The call of the homeland versus the camaraderie of his creation. My guess, but I would say this, is the latter.
As the gnarled Kiwi tends to, he applied the centre of the hammer to the sweet spot of the nail with his after-match assessment. This cannot be just another inspired Welsh rising, not another size-defying Grand Slam, not another pointless claim to the myth of the Seventies. There were eight players in that starting XV who are 23 or younger. That isn't potential, that's a promise. Well, it will be if the Welsh Rugby Union listen to everything Gatland says when he lays out his demands. He has shown what he can do when he is allowed an extended period with the boys, and those boys have shown what they can do when they are allowed the required time to take on board the man's vision.
No doubt the Welsh regions will benefit from this glorious exposure of pure talent, but at the same time they must realise what it will require to bring the dream to fruition. It needs Gatland to call the shots of the entire domestic game. There is way, way too much at stake to let these past six weeks become one more false dawn.
We in Wales are experts at turning the negative into the positive and toasting the brave vanquished. This has to be more than that. A building block, a stepping stone. And excuse us while we use Rolland's head as leverage. Bitter? You bet. In fact, that doesn't even begin to approximate to the scale of our gripe. Maybe "dwyn" does. Robbed, as we say in Wales.
James Corrigan, Independent on Sunday: The Last Word: Sunday, 16 October 2011
Bitter doesn't even begin to describe the sheer scale of Welsh grievance
With all the abuse heading in his direction, I wouldn't be Alain Rolland for all the croissants in Ireland. However unfair, however unjust, the taunts concerning his French ancestry will carry on throughout my lifetime and, undoubtedly, that of my four-year-old son as well.
I can't explain what it was like to be Welsh on the morning of Saturday 15 October 2011. We don't need to revert to war, economics, death or life for any hyperbolic baloney. It was sport at its most elemental, which evoked a criss-cross of emotions that will forever pattern the nation's sporting heart.
Somewhere in a corner of the land of a white cloud which will never be any longer, or indeed any less white, Andy Haden knew that his sentence of recrimination was finally at an end. Haden, of course, was the All Black lock-forward who leapt out of that line-out at the Arms Park 33 years ago, causing another panicking referee to award a penalty to deny Wales victory. That glory would merely have been famous – this would have been immortal.
How do Wales react now? Some genuises, probably in Britain's very own media, will do the usual trick of employing the damnable powers of hindsight to point out that when it truly mattered Wales fell short of the miracle which dangled like the most joyous apple at Eden Park.
Let them talk about James Hook's missed penalties, Stephen Jones's hit post, the drop goal which was begged to make Jonny Wilkinson's seem like a backheel in the local park. Let them talk about the International Rugby Board's directive to the refs to show zero tolerance in regard of tackles deemed dangerous.
What a laugh that is. The IRB, the most toothless governing body in any big-time sport, coming over all big man and sticking up for their official. The IRB happen to reel off more ignored directives than the banking system. Yes, let them say what they want. And let the patronising of "a little country" go into its inevitable overdrive. In Wales we won't listen. We will carry this injustice like a badge of honour.
We happen to be good losers – we've been forced to be – and the two aspects about this loss which were good were the character and the grievance. However vehementlythe wannabe Vince Lombardis out there will insist it's only about the winning, that won't mean a hill of daffodils where I'm from. It hurt. It bloody hurt. The tears of our toddlers simply summed up our gloom.
I made contact with Sam Warburton's twin brother, Ben, as the desperation submerged. "Gutted, mate," was his response. There was nothing more to be said. No, nobody should escape the merciless reach of the rulebook just because of their reputation. Sam Warbuton's tackle was an instant,the sort of instant which only sport can produce, and the referee had to make a call. In one sense, I applaud Rolland for acting as he saw fit, for putting the regulations he is conditioned to regard as gospel before the qualities of the individual. But you can't escape the sporting truth: this was wrong on every count. In the head, in the heart, in the context. Everything.
So where do Wales go from here? To a third- and fourth-place play-off. And I wouldn't be surprised if we filled the Millennium Stadium again. But then, when that consoling hero-worship subsides, Warren Gatland has to sit down and decide on his future. The All Blacks will come knocking, be sure of it, and the Wales head coach will face a choice from the sickest imagination of Beelzebub. The call of the homeland versus the camaraderie of his creation. My guess, but I would say this, is the latter.
As the gnarled Kiwi tends to, he applied the centre of the hammer to the sweet spot of the nail with his after-match assessment. This cannot be just another inspired Welsh rising, not another size-defying Grand Slam, not another pointless claim to the myth of the Seventies. There were eight players in that starting XV who are 23 or younger. That isn't potential, that's a promise. Well, it will be if the Welsh Rugby Union listen to everything Gatland says when he lays out his demands. He has shown what he can do when he is allowed an extended period with the boys, and those boys have shown what they can do when they are allowed the required time to take on board the man's vision.
No doubt the Welsh regions will benefit from this glorious exposure of pure talent, but at the same time they must realise what it will require to bring the dream to fruition. It needs Gatland to call the shots of the entire domestic game. There is way, way too much at stake to let these past six weeks become one more false dawn.
We in Wales are experts at turning the negative into the positive and toasting the brave vanquished. This has to be more than that. A building block, a stepping stone. And excuse us while we use Rolland's head as leverage. Bitter? You bet. In fact, that doesn't even begin to approximate to the scale of our gripe. Maybe "dwyn" does. Robbed, as we say in Wales.
James Corrigan, Independent on Sunday: The Last Word: Sunday, 16 October 2011
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