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BBC News | UK | World Edition
Darling pledges to support banks
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:34:47 -0000
Chancellor Alistair Darling says the government will do whatever necessary to maintain stability of the financial system as shares slide worldwide.
Wife forgives dead police chief
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:55:20 -0000
The widow of a police chief found dead days after he revealed an extra-marital affair says she has forgiven him.
Death crash footballer is jailed
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:23:25 -0000
Ex-Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper Luke McCormick is jailed for causing the deaths of two children by dangerous driving.
Hells Angel 'shot dead by rivals'
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:00:01 -0000
A biker shot dead as he rode on a motorway was the victim of a "cold-blooded" and "ruthless" attack, a court hears.
Energy bills are 'unfair to some'
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:16:22 -0000
Energy regulator Ofgem tells power firms to deliver the benefits of competition to all consumers.
Menezes officers 'not at fault'
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:58:33 -0000
The police did nothing wrong in the run-up to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a policewoman tells the inquest into his death.
The Economist: Britain
Mortgage malaise: Closer and closer to home
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:11:45 -0000
As fear stalks the markets, the government may have to do more to steady nervesLITTLE more than a year after the run on Northern Rock, which was halted only by an unprecedented Treasury guarantee to the mortgage bank’s depositors, the government had to contemplate a similar drastic step this week to prop up Britain’s banking system. The renewed crisis shows how widely mistrust in banks has spread over the past 12 months. And it reflects growing anxiety about the exposure of British mortgage lenders to possible crippling losses on risky loans as the economy falters, the property market falls and borrowers get into trouble. The sense of foreboding intensified during the week despite the government’s firm action over the weekend to deal with Bradford & Bingley, another troubled mortgage lender. In contrast with the dithering over Northern Rock, ministers acted decisively to forestall another retail run and to ensure that deposits were placed in secure hands (see article). ...
The Conservative Party: A poisoned chalice?
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:11:45 -0000
A return to power still looks likely for the Tories, if not entirely attractiveAT MOST of their annual conferences over the past decade, senior Conservatives have had to feign jollity in the face of dismal electoral prospects. So they must have been discombobulated by instructions to do just the opposite at this year’s gathering, which took place in Birmingham from September 28th. Despite their comfortable lead in the polls, they pulled it off. Champagne receptions and celebratory speeches were ditched to avoid seeming smug at a time of economic crisis. The Tory leader, David Cameron, even gave his set-piece speech on October 1st from a lectern, calculating that his usual gambit of roaming the stage without notes would be inappropriately showy.After avoiding triumphalism, the Tories’ main objective was to show a sure touch on the economy, and here their performance was mixed. An offer to co-operate with the government provided a welcome contrast to the partisan rancour in Washington. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, briefly returned to London during the conference for a summit with Alistair Darling, his opposite number, and Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesman. After a Labour Party conference that sometimes sounded a little too pleased by capitalism’s travails, the Tories stood up for the market without exonerating bankers from the charge of irresponsibility. And Mr Osborne’s long-standing refusal to promise an overall cut in taxes looks vindicated, in the face of a burgeoning fiscal deficit. ...
Bradford & Bingley: Death of a one-trick pony
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:11:45 -0000
The regulators get it rightUNLIKE the botched nationalisation in February of Northern Rock, a troubled mortgage lender, or the forced monster merger—which could still come unstuck—of Lloyds TSB and HBOS announced on September 18th, the neat filleting of Bradford & Bingley (B&B) ten days later seemed to show Britain’s financial regulators at last on the front foot. B&B is the last of those former building societies that demutualised after a 1986 law made it possible, and became publicly listed banks. Its assets have been nationalised and its retail deposits sold to Spain’s Banco Santander.The Treasury acted under a bank-rescue law passed after Northern Rock’s nationalisation, moving as soon as the Financial Services Authority declared B&B unlikely to meet its obligations. Attempts to sell the bank in its entirety to the usual suspects had failed. But Banco Santander agreed to pay GBP612m ($1.1 billion) for GBP20 billion in retail deposits and 197 branches. This will add 2.7m customers to those of Abbey, Santander’s subsidiary since 2004, and Alliance & Leicester, another once-mutual lender that Santander acquired in July. The combined bank will have about 10% of all retail deposits, less than Lloyds TSB/HBOS and RBS. Unlike previous rescues, this one puts depositors in the hands of a foreign bank with diverse businesses in Britain, Iberia and Latin America. ...
Political parties: Hero worship
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:11:45 -0000
How parties see themselvesTHE hero a party chooses says something about its current view of the world—but what, exactly? Margaret Thatcher walked it as the Conservative delegates’ Greatest Tory at a fringe event on September 29th organised by the Guardian. But Winston Churchill, joint saviour of the free world only about 60 years ago, edged out the Whig philosopher Edmund Burke by just one vote. Benjamin Disraeli, the deft shaper of modern Conservatism, finished fourth.A week earlier Labour chose its favourite son. James Keir Hardie, the Scottish miner who helped found the Labour Party and first led it, beat Clement Attlee (whose legacy was the welfare state) and Aneurin Bevan (ditto the NHS), to say nothing of a powerful minister, Barbara Castle. Last year the Liberal Democrats, who started the craze for identifying party greats, elected the liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill over the reforming prime minister David Lloyd George. ...
Supermarket finance: A mortgage from Tesco?
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:11:45 -0000
A retailer branches outMORTGAGE banks may be falling like ninepins, but that does not matter to Tesco, Britain’s leading supermarket chain. “Mortgages are looking quite attractive as a line of business,” said an official this week, as the firm reported buoyant half-year profits to August 23rd. Later this month Tesco expects to take full ownership of Tesco Personal Finance (TPF), its 11-year-old joint venture with RBS, a retail bank, and has big plans for it. TPF now has around 5.6m customer accounts with deposits, savings, loans and credit cards. It made a relatively modest GBP71m profit over the past six months, but wants to increase that, along with profits from other services including telecommunications, to GBP1 billion a year. Tesco has the freedom to expand into banking, touting its well-known brand, because its main business is thriving, even in tough markets. Global retail sales grew by 14% and profits by 11% compared with the same period last year. It has seen particularly strong growth in Malaysia and Poland, and rapid expansion (but a small loss) in China. Even in its embattled British home market (which accounts for over 70% of its business), turnover in its seasoned stores rose by 3.7%. Its upmarket rival Marks & Spencer, by contrast, has seen a 6.1% drop in sales over the past quarter. ...
High-speed rail: Fast trains to take the strain
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:11:45 -0000
The Tories come out for superfast trains and against expanding Heathrow“THERE is no more money,” intoned George Osborne, the Conservative shadow chancellor, to the ranks of the faithful at the Conservative Party conference on September 29th, castigating the government for profligacy during the good times. But Mr Osborne’s fit of the dismals did not stop Theresa Villiers, the party’s transport secretary, from promising on the same day that a Tory government would scrap proposals for a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport and spend GBP15.6 billion to build a French-style high-speed rail line connecting London and Leeds via Birmingham and Manchester by 2027. She also foresees a spur linking Britain’s only existing high-speed line (from the Channel Tunnel to London’s St Pancras station) to Heathrow airport.Ms Villiers promised plenty of benefits. A high-speed line would cut journey times from London to Leeds by 28 minutes, and to Manchester by 45 minutes. That would ease the strain on existing lines, making more room for freight trains and commuter services. Displacing domestic flights and enabling travellers from Paris and Brussels to reach the north of England by train would mean 66,000 fewer flights a year from Heathrow, removing much of the justification for a third runway at that crowded airport. And electrically powered trains would emit less nasty carbon than fossil-fuelled aircraft. ...
