Some telling points to Osborne on the IMF Fiasco

The following points to the arrogant George Osborne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer following his statement on the IMF were as follows:


Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): Does the Chancellor not accept that the credibility of the IMF itself is put in question if it continues to provide support for eurozone countries that are, and remain, insolvent?

Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con): Last October, the Chancellor told this House that Britain would not be putting money into the bail-out fund, either directly or through the IMF. He said:

“the IMF contributing money to the eurozone bail-out fund? No. And Britain contributing money to the eurozone bail-out fund? No. That is Britain’s clear position.”—[Official Report, 27 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 471.]

Has he changed his mind or was he playing with words?

Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Given that I agree with the Chancellor that IMF money should not be used to bail out a currency, will he urge the IMF to make sure that loans are made available to European countries only when they are in a position to devalue or when they are withdrawing from the single currency? Otherwise, as with the sterling area, surely the responsibility rests with the governing authorities and the central bank of the euro to make the money, the loans, the subsidies available.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab): The IMF was designed for a world of separate national currencies with exchange controls and properly managed national economies. Is it not time to look again at re-creating that sensible world, because it actually worked, starting with the re-creation of national currencies in Europe?

Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con): The only way for Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece to become competitive and get their economies growing again is through a return to national currencies. Does not the Chancellor agree that it is a bonkers policy to pour billions and billions of UK taxpayers’ money into supporting the failed euro?

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): But is not the IMF in danger of sleight of hand? On the one hand the IMF claims not to bail out currencies, yet on the other hand it offers bilateral loans to countries in the eurozone that are failing because of the eurozone currency. Is that not an indirect loan from the IMF?

 Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab): If in the weeks ahead the IMF announces, to everyone’s utter astonishment, that it wants to use some of that general fund for the eurozone bail-out pot, will the Chancellor bring the matter back to the House and allow us to vote on it?

The replies, naturally enough, are not worth recording but may be found on this link to Hansard together with many other points raised to this remorseless, contritionless and compassionless piece of puffed-up privilege, George Osborne.