11th November 2015 It was midway between the canon of lamb and the passing of the port that George Osborne rose to his feet. Addressing a room of 350 white-tie wearing bankers, the 44-year-old Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to have a spring in his step. Just a few weeks earlier, the Tories had won a […]
8th November, 2015 In a stark warning to the government, the MP Steve Baker has said we’re flying blind where RBS and the wider banking system are concerned, as accounts prepared using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) cannot be relied upon. In what was the stand-out contribution to last Thursday’s House of Commons debate on RBS and the future […]
7th November 2015 The FactSheet compiled by RBS’s senior communications executive and deputy chief economist Andrew Wilson in February 2007 pleased his master, the bank’s chief executive, Fred Goodwin, as it put RBS’s financial success in context. But it was also incredibly bombastic and dangerously hubristic Royal Bank of Scotland issued an extraordinary flyer to journalists on the […]
27th October, 2015 When trying to interview bankers and other City of London insiders for his Guardian banking blog three years ago — material which later formed the basis of his recently published book, Swimming with Sharks: My Journey Into The Word of Bankers — Joris Luyendijk came across exactly the same sort of resistance […]
21st August 2015 Tony Blair came under fire at the Edinburgh International Book Festival tonight. The former Labour prime minister was branded a “war-monger” and an Israeli shill by emeritus professor at Oxford University Avi Shlaim, with reference to Blair’s failed role as the Quartet’s peace envoy in the Middle East. Slamming the Quartet a vehicle of the neo-conservative, […]
3rd August, 2015 Cross-posted from Zerohedge (updated) Tom Hayes, the former UBS and Citigroup trader standing trial for his role in the manipulation of Libor, was today found guilty on eight counts of conspiracy to rig the benchmark in a London court, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. The jury, which deliberated for a […]
10th June, 2015 George Osborne has confirmed that the UK government will start selling off its £32bn stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland at a loss, insisting any delay would be bad for the economy, taxpayers and bank. Addressing the annual Mansion House dinner in the City of London, Osborne said: “It’s the right thing […]
7th June, 2015 In this interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, recorded in their Fleet Place studios, I said that RBS still hasn’t shrunk enough and that the bank still lacks transparency. In particular I implied it was being somewhat dishonest in its provisioning for future litigation and the cost of past/current misconduct. The interview, which […]
7th June, 2015 Afshin Rattansi asked me about who was to blame for the Royal Bank of Scotland’s collapse, whether the 2008-09 bailout was mishandled, the scapegoating of Fred Goodwin by former prime minister Gordon Brown, and whether the government has a vested interest in airbrushing the bank’s crimes and misdemeanours, in view of its […]
6th May, 2015 Having studied the manifestos I can now say it with some certainty. There is only British political party that is committed to reforming Britain’s broken banking system and still largely out-of-control City of London. The Green Party. Other parties such as the Conservatives and the Labour party do mention things like implementing the Sir John Vickers […]