Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Oakeshott's off over Osborne's offer...


Lord Oakeshott is on his way...he and the party leadership agreed [Link]. Apparently he isn't happy about the the bank deal announced earlier by George Osborne. However, the fact that the "major banks will pay less in bonuses than last year, make the names of top earners public and will lend an additional £11bn to businesses" and have also agreed to increase lending to small and medium-sized businesses IMHO seems a good start! This is Money...Business Secretary Vince Cable added:
'Today's agreement is a good step forward for British business... ...will give the UK the most transparent financial regime in the world, while linking executive pay to lending gives businesses a crucial assurance that bank executives have a stake in the real economy.

'This is part of an ongoing process of reform of the banking sector. We are in no way pre-judging the big structural questions being addressed by the Independent Commission on Banking, including competition and the structure of banks."
Update Thursday 10th: Allister Heath agrees with the Lord methinks! City A.M. looks at "The top ten real causes of the crisis" and ends with this: "None of these points are addressed by Merlin. It deserves to fail." Oh well. I still think it's a good start!

Bookmark and Share

2 comments:

Paul said...

I thought I'd posted already on this!I agree with what City A.M has posted, I'm hopeful about the new proposals but I think the Government can only do so much - there has to be a degree of self regulation but also an awareness of public opinion.

Span Ows said...

I'm sure you have. But I think AH is diving in with both feet with no benefit of the doubt. As I wrote, it may appear not the best set of proposals but it's a start... I just hope this is a start.