Growing Unease About Old Lady's Secrecy

SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2009

Growing Unease About Old Lady's Secrecy

Remember Something Odd in the Banking Bill from early December? Guido was suspicious about the removal of the requirement of the Bank of England to tell us how much money it is printing:

The 1844 Banking Bill ensured transparency in the operations of the Bank of England. It has been good enough for over 164 years.

Surely it can't be that they don't want us to know how fast the Bank of England's printing presses are going to be running?

The Telegraph's economics editor has just cottoned on to the dodge:

The Government is set to throw out the 165-year old law that obliges the Bank to publish a weekly account of its balance sheet – a move that will allow it theoretically to embark covertly on so-called quantitative easing. The Banking Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament, abolishes a key section of the law laid down by Robert Peel's Government in 1844 which originally granted the Bank the sole right to print UK money.

... Debating the issue in the House of Lords recently, Lord James of Blackheath, a Conservative peer, said: "Remove [this] control and there is nothing to stop an unreported and unmonitored flooding of the money market by the undisciplined use of the printing presses. If we went down that path we would be following a road which starts in Weimar, goes on through Harare and must not end in Westminster and London. That is the great fear that the abolition of that section will bring about – but the Bill abolishes it."

You read it here first...

Hoon Blunts Labour's New Attack on Middle Classes

Guido's Geoff Hoon story from earlier last week has made it to the Mail on Sunday, where it is used to illustrate the hypocrisy of the political class. Hoon bought his daughter private tutoring in interview technique to successfully give her a better chance of winning an Oxbridge place at a time when Brown is, we learn from the Observer, bringing back Alan Milburn, to"undertake a review of obstacles faced by poorer children seeking to enter careers such as law, medicine and the media" in order to promote social mobility. Chris Grayling hits Hoon on the head, "Time and time again we see double standards from Ministers. They want to change the rules to make it tougher for everyone else while enjoying all the perks for themselves and their families." Guido understands that Hoon desperately tried to kill the story with a threat to go to the Press Complaints Commission for breach of privacy.

Guido thinks politicians (and candidates) should not be allowed to claim privacy protection, all their behaviour as public office holders and aspirants should be subject to scrutiny in the public interest. We need to know if they are hypocritically extolling one law for us and another for themselves. Which of course Hoon is guilty of here without a doubt, just as Gordon was when he got private dental treatment.