Tonight's Conversation Starter for Mandelson and Balls

MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2008

Tonight's Conversation Starter for Mandelson and Balls

Patrick Hennessy tells us that there is an interesting dinner planned for tonight, and that in a new found spirit of peaceful cooperation, bread will be broken by two old enemies. Before the great tribal truce and the summoning of the Dark Lord from over the water by the One-Eyed Son of the Manse, Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls were the most vicious champions of their respective masters; Blair and Brown. Briefing and pouring bile about the enemy camp into the ears of anyone who would listen.

It was at the height of the Blair destabilising cash for honours investigation that Guido was sent a document outlining the use of 11 Downing Street by the Smith Institute and the role of that "charity" in furthering Gordon's ambitions. The note was passed to Guido by an über-Blairite close to No. 10. This was hardly surprising since No. 10 suspected (rightly) the Brownies were stoking the flames of cash for honours, this was essentially a sleaze counter-attack. The note outlined how Gordon got private polling and personal consultants flown in from the States. How they were paid for by cash-for-access meetings in No. 11 involving Brown and his aides under the auspices of the Smith Institute. Balls himself was paid an £89,000 bung by the Smith Institute and is now under scrutiny with the Tories looking to link this payment and others to the unlawful furtherance of Brown's political ambitions.

Perhaps tonight, over the appetisers, Ed might want to ask Peter who it is he thinks was the cabinet minister who gave a very similar tip to the Tories?

Guido is Feeling Charitable

On Friday the Evening Standard launched its Christmas charity auction in aid of Greenhouse. Greenhouse provides sport and performing arts programmes for youngsters in deprived neighbourhoods. 

One lot in particular caught Guido's eye. Don't worry Michael, Guido will pay cash in a brown envelope...

So It Begins : UK Authorities Censor Wikipedia

If you search Wikipedia for The Scorpions"Virgin Killer" album, you will get a "The requested URL en.wikipedia.org was not found on this server" 404 error. This is because the album cover is deemed to be child pornography. The censorship is being done at Internet Service Provider level by the networks. The rights and wrongs of this case are nuanced.

The technological capability will no doubt have the politicians salivating. They are able to block any website on some pre-text from being viewed in the UK. That is a power they won't be able to resist...

Hat-tip : The Register

Can Someone Explain the Bank Bail-Out?

Guido has flu and so does baby Ms Fawkes, who made her unhappiness abundantly clear between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. this morning. So perhaps it is the grogginess that is hindering Guido's ability to comprehend Gordon's financial genius. The £600 billion bank bail out plan to restore liquidity to the credit markets includes the following elements:

• H.M. Treasury has guaranteed British inter-bank lending (charging a hefty penalty risk premium adding to the cost of inter-bank lending).
  
• The Treasury has demanded preference shares from the banks with, from memory, a 12% interest charge to be paid by the banks.
• The Treasury has also encouraged the FSA to double the requirement for banks to hold government gilts in their reserves, yielding somewhat less than a paltry 4%.
• The Treasury is demanding that banks lend at mortgage rates closer to base rates.

Is Guido missing something? How can the banks make a profit and recapitalise if the government has both hiked their cost of capital and reduced the returns on their reserves, as well as exhorting them to reduce their margins on mortgage lending? How does this plan add up?

Rich & Mark's Monday Morning View

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2008