Jacqui Smith: ID Cards Are Safe And Well, Ha! Ha! Ha!
In the wonderful and wacky world of surreal politics which is the happy hunting ground of New Labour, there is never a dead horse which cannot stand yet more flogging.
Jacqui Smith is trotting out the usual stuff and nonsense to what must be a very bored or very credulous audience at the Demos think tank, although there is precious little to indicate actual thought happening, just the normal dirge-like repitition of a tired and discredited mantra as New Labour treads water before its forthcoming electoral defeat.
Read the full text of the snake-oil saleswoman’s patter over here.
The Meteoric Fall Of A New Labour Nonentity
Firstly, we need to clear up the fact that meteors do not rise, but fall.
From BadAstronomy.com:
So meteors start off in space, and then fall to the Earth. They appear dramatically, flashing into out view, and burn out suddenly, sometimes leaving a long trail of glowing ash behind them.
Secondly, we need to define zeitgeist, which is: “the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time”.
Thirdly, an far less easily, we need to explain who Caroline Flint is and why she has suddenly been noticed by the media.
She is, apparently, a new Housing Minister and only two weeks into the job, she thought she would make a name for herself by threatening to force tenants of social housing (what used to be called council housing until it was forcibly infected with the free market doctrines of Mrs Thatcher) to enter into contracts whereby they would be evicted if they became unemployed.
This is the sort of thing which might earn you a few plaudits from people like John Redwood or any Nazis still in hiding in South America, but it was always going to need some degree of care and thought with regard to how and when it was announced.
Clue: when the whole of government is under scrutiny for filching taxpayer money to feather the nests of MPs; when the tenuous link of trust between the governors and the governed is about to snap; when the government is seen as utterly and irredeemably incompetent in everything it does; when Gordon Brown seems to have managed to exist for several minutes without being universally mocked for being the author of yet another catastrophe - those are not the times.
So, it was pretty stupid of Caroline Flint to blithely go ahead and make announcements which were not only idiotic in their own right, but were bound to cast her own administreation as worse than the demon Mrs Thatcher’s yet again.
Even her own kind quickly deserted her:
Labour MP John McDonnell said: “To threaten to make people homeless is more brutal than anything we’ve seen since the end of the Poor Law. The new generation of ministers and advisers appear to be living up to the mantle of Thatcher’s children.
What next? Will it be the novel idea of the workhouse?”
Reaction from the homeless charity Shelter:
Adam Sampson, the head of Shelter, said: “The Government wants to return Britain’s unemployed to the workhouse by throwing them on to the streets. What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless.”
What about people who actually know something about the subject, rather than some newly appointed minister who has probably never given it a second thought until she lands a new job?
Alan Walter, of the Defend Council Housing campaign, said: “It is an outrage that any Government minister talks to council tenants like this.
“They wouldn’t dare treat homeowners in the leafy suburbs with this kind of contempt or try and make their tenure conditional on employment.”
Stupid minister, stupid government, stupid ideas, stupid bunch of failures and no-hopers, you might think.
Of course, she must have the backing of Her Majesty’s Comptroller of Control Freakery, Mr Bean, before she lets her mouth run away with her like this.
Oh, dear. Apparently not. The prime minister’s spokesman could only mutter something about a subject of debate before refusing to back her position no less than five times.
Of course, now we all know that Michael Martin, the Speaker, claims £17 000 per year for living expenses, despite being giving palatial and gratis accommodation within the Palace in Wonderland of Westminster, perhaps it would be an idea for someone to find out what level of extortion and embezzlement of taxpayer money the new housing minister applies when making her own claims from the Parliamentary slush fund.
Probably, of course, none. Which brings us back to zeitgeist.
Nobody trusts a word any politician says any more. Caroline Flint would have done better to keep her mouth shut.
Egg On Face Of Bunch Of Bankers
Bankers are very far from being the cleverest people on earth, but because they deal in money, rather than, say, vegetables, people think that they are very special. Special needs would be more accurate.
This is what one City banker said of his own trade: “[it is] always sensible to work on the assumption that banks are mad, they behave like lemmings, there is always something they all go and do that then explodes”.
This is David Freud, the chap who advises the government on stopping payments to benefits claimants.
He also said that banking was recently a “pioneering piratical industry where we made up the rules” and that the City is still “morally ambiguous because it’s so competitive”.
So, when bankers themselves cannot find a good word to say about their own trade, it is hardly surprising that Egg, owned by one of the biggest bankers of all, Citigroup, should make such a complete and utter hash of dumping its customers in an attempt to make up for its losses in the sub-prime mortgage market.
In The Guardian:
John McFall, chairman of the powerful Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘The motives of Egg need clear explanation if this a case of them ditching long-standing creditworthy customers because they make no money out of them. Perhaps this is an issue that requires an Office of Fair Trading investigation.’
Last October The Observer revealed how consumers with blameless credit ratings are being refused credit cards and consumer groups report that the practice is spreading.
Peter Thornton, a Liberal Democrat councillor in the Lake District, has been an Egg customer for over five years. He received a letter terminating his credit card on Friday. He said: ‘This is more than an amazing PR blunder. There’s a huge amount of people in my position. I’m on a lower interest rate because presumably they’ve assessed me as a good risk. Every business would benefit from losing 10 per cent of the least profitable customers, but the rest of us realise we can’t do that because it would be a PR disaster. They’re on the radio saying it’s just bad risk people they’re getting rid of. I feel slandered by that.’
Of course, banks and bankers are slightly higher on the social spectrum than MPs, but still way below common criminals, confidence tricksters and convicted grandmother-sellers.
According to the BBC News, Egg’s own statement is appropriately arrogant and stupid, as would befit a banker:
A spokesman for Egg said: “We are sorry some customers are upset after receiving notification we are ending their credit card arrangement, but they are people we do not feel it is appropriate to lend any money to.”
He added: “The decision was taken after an extensive one-off review of our credit card book following acquisition by Citigroup.”
“We can certainly understand the concerns, but even if people are up-to-date with repayments, they are people we decided we no longer wish to lend money to regardless of their status.”
The spokesperson for the British Bankers Association almost hits the nail on the head, if you convert what she says to what she actually means:
Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers Association, said that Egg’s action was “a sensible way of looking after a business”.
“Whilst it is lovely to spend, it is the paying back that is always the difficulty. It might seem a bit hard to say to people ‘You do need to stop spending’ but it does actually make real sense so to do.”
If you read this as: “It is lovely when the banks are making loads of money on the backs of people when times are good, but as soon as things get harder for us, we will drop you like a stone” you will be nearer to the truth.
The BBC also kindly lists some customer comments about the actions of these not-so-clever bankers:
I too have just received one of these letters. I have had an Egg card for almost 8 years and have never missed a payment (like others here I usually pay off the balance if I have one) and have never gone over my limit and my credit rating is excellent. It seems to me that Egg are picking on those who are in control of their finances and therefore not paying them lots of interest. If they deem fit to remove my Egg card, I shall be removing my Egg Savings (which has a far larger balance than my Egg card!). I think this is disgraceful behaviour on their part.
Mary, EdinburghI received the letter yesterday. What angered me most was the suggestion that the decision may have been the result of some detrimental entry to my credit report, causing me to fear that I may have been the victim of identity theft. This put me to the needless expense of obtaining a copy of my credit report, which of course is fine. The letter from Egg consisted of a tissue of lies which were merely a smoke-screen for the real reason behind the decision which I suspect is that I don’t use the card enough. Why couldn’t they just be honest and say that - but then I suppose the two words “honest” and “banking” don’t sit well together these days do they!
Chris O’Shea, Woking, Surrey
Of course, nobody would expect the people at Egg or any others with banker-sized brains to remember the Northern Rock crisis of a few months ago and how a run on a bank caused it to collapse.
Bankers actually need customers more than customers need the so-called services of any individual bank.
It might not do Egg any harm if people started withdrawing their savings and writing to them telling them that you no longer wish to deposit your money with a bank which you find behaves in an untrustworthy way and may not be creditworthy anyway.
-
Recent Posts
-
About and Stuff
At the moment it is about wondering whether this is really such a good idea after all.
Site Podcasts 
Audio RSS Feed
-
Popular Tags
anti-terror laws banking bankrupt britain Business catastrophe conspiracy corporatism corruption crime and punishment cyber crime data loss data loss scandal deception delusions disasters dodgy deals failure fiasco freedom free markets george bush gordon brown government Home Office human rights hypocrisy ID cards idiocy imbeciles incompetence Jacqui Smith jobs for the boys lies market forces money New Britain New Labour NHS politicians scandal stupidity tony blair untrustworthiness War on Terror