Iceland's former Prime Minister on trial for negligence!

A precedent of considerable concern to many supposed democratic leaders and Commission officials across the EU is set today when Former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde goes on trial at a special court on charges of negligence in his handling of the 2008 financial crisis. The BBC News report on this trial is linked here.

As detailed blow by blow on this blog, the British Government's handling of the banking crisis, the full effects of which have been merely deferred rather than confronted; sometimes pale into insignificance when compared to the events within the eurozone, but what Brown and Darling accomplished nevertheless will eventually require their being brought to account!

My Comment to John Redwood MP today

Posted September 27, 2011 at 6:36 am | Permalink

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

The Coalition Government has made a grave error in not opening either a full political or criminal inquiry into the dealings with the banks in the latter years of the Labour administration. Suspicions are confirmed by close reading of Alistair Darling’s recent book.
Never mind precedent, or the fear of such a tool being used against themselves at some point in the future (if they act with probity thay will have nothing to fear), the circumstances surrounding RBS/Lloyds HBOS were politically inspired and encouraged and what occurred remains unknown in spite of the £Billions of taxpayers money lost as a result!. If the Government/Public Prosecuting authorites will not act then back bench MPs should.
If Labour are allowed to dodge responsibilty, as they are presently being permitted so to do, it will not just be Lib Dem MPs thrown out in an election held amidst economic meltdown!

Housing Crisis remains at root of our ongoing economic disaster!

From time to time this blog returns to the housing disaster which affects almost the entire english speaking world. Our leaders try to ignore it, presumably as they either hope it will go away or convince themselves that inflation will cause it to disappear.

In the past this blog has proposed some suggested cures, but I have now tired of re-posting the various links. A survey from the USA today, however, has such startling facts on the ongoing crisis that I felt it necessary to briefly return to the topic (in spite of all the excitement of the continuing slow-motion collapse of the euro). Here are some of the lowlights:

Only those homeowners under thirty and over fifty are now in the majority in thinking that their home equity will add to their retirement funds.

22.5% of all homeowners with a mortgage are now underwater.

68% reported that if they lost their job they would not be able to continue with their mortgage payments after nine months. Typical unemployment extends to almost 10 months

Americans dumped upon by their own politicians, must now face nothing but almost complete dismay, as European leaders continue to play russian roulette with the world's economy!

The Entire British Establishment Stands Condemned by Darling's Downing Street Memoirs!

Nobody in Britain can claim that they did not know Gordon Brown was an out of control maniac, determined to destroy Britain's economy. This blog and others chronicled his lunatic and demented activities day by day.

Now the nation feigns shock as Alistair Darling's memoirs of his 1000 days as Brown's Chancellor of the Exchequer, at 11 Downing Street, detail the deliberate denudation of our country.

The entire British Establishment stands condemned of treachery, from the Sovereign at the top, through to the civil service mandarins, down to the lowliest civil servant, on and on to include all the minor fry, whether elected or appointed central or local official, every Quango Chief and ordinary member who ever had any contact with this dangerous man.

If blackmail was involved, as surely must have been the case in many instances, then the nation needs to root out the dark secrets  that were thus being hidden, so awful that each individual deliberately chose the destruction of his country and betrayal of his functions rather than have them revealed.

Even more critically, in today's situation of the EU now being on the brink of economic collapse, a similar crisis confronts us this very day. The leaders of our country are destroying what remains of our national resources, having pared our defences to the bone, to save the doomed Euro currency, while refusing to consider any policy preparations which might ease the path of our country when the inevitable Greek default occurs, and the tumbling dominoes that will follow seem likely to sweep our banks to destruction in their path, and with them all the billions of taxpayers' money, wasted by Brown, Balls, Darling, Cameron, Clegg and Osborne with it, leaving us essentially bankrupt.

What hold does the EU have over our national leaders of today? Where in Parliament is there an MP who will get to his feet  or face a national broadcaster and proclaim "Enough!"

(Update 0845 am BST - Further reading John Rentoul Independent on Sunday.)

15,000 Redundancies - The Deliberate Destruction of Lloyds Bank!

Gordon Brown, should today be serving time in jail! 

The redundancies announced by Lloyds Bank today were a result of his deliberate actions, read Reuters here.

This blog warned, AGAIN and AGAIN, read here. Particularly the one below, quoted (hopefully with working links) in full herewith:

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Warnings for Brown on his Lloyds Destruction

Brown leaked it via Robert Peston of the BBC on 17th September 2008 linked here. On 18th September among many other criticisms this blog stated, (linked here): If the problem is mistrust by bankers of one another, absorbtion of one bank by another will surely merely shift the target of others mistrust.... On 13th October, I blogged twice on the topic (here and here), among my comments were the following: Of course one cannot really say that a deal is continuing when the price has been re-negotiated downwards by 27 per cent but the join-up of the banks seems to be continuing condemning LLoyds not only to nationalisation but almost certain death! +++++ The only other bank presently involved seems to be Lloyds TSB which was perfectly viable before they became entwined in the machinations of the demented Gordon Brown - now presumably the Lloyds shareholders are to be punished/sacrificed for having doubts on the originally hastily cobbled together deal. British taxpayers can neither afford nor pay for this deal which does not direct a single penny towards the source of the problem - the exploded house price bubble...... Things just get stranger and stranger - Where is the Parliamentary Opposition? On 20th October under the heading "Battle for Britain's Banks" (linked here) my post included these thoughts: Last week the Marx inspired British Government declared war on Britain's Banks.... Lloyds and HBOS issues look set to become a side-show this week, although it is disturbing to see Legal and General recommend the merger, Lloyds shareholders should make their own calculations, large finance companies may easily be swayed by their holdings in HBOS when casting their votes a shareholders of Lloyds! The taxpayers can merely look on in horror and trust that all these deals may yet collapse before a single penny of the billions of taxpayers funds pledged, which can never be realistically raised let alone repaid, are actually legally committed let alone begun to be transferred. (Link on latest borrowing added at 11:30 am, here). On 22nd November was this afterthought to a post linked here: Worrying for annuity holders with Legal and General (such as myself) which insurer supported the HBOS takeover and yesterday approved the dilution of their Barclay's equity value - have they really thought all this through? On 13th December (link here) I despaired: The Guardian reports the meeting where the castrated shareholders of HBOS went along with those of Lloyds in agreeing the merger of the two banks which the mazed mainstream media insist on predicting will be a "Superbank" but in fact will result in years of debts for Britain's bankrupt mainly non-voting electorate and the nation's future taxpaying generation. Starting the New Year of 2009 on Monday January 5th (link here) I blogged:

HBOS Pensioners fear for the future

The insane merger of Lloyds with HBOS forced through by the increasingly demented British Prime Minister has hit another snag as HBOS Final Salary Pension Scheme Trustees go to Court a week from today to obtain some guarantees for their future, report here. Thus on the proper first working day of the New Year one of the PM's many demented projects, dubbed by his media apologists as a "Super Bank" we see the shares in the companies involved plunging even below their levels of last year. AND SO IT CONTINUED WITH 5 MORE BLOGS IN JANUARY AND 7 IN FEBRUARY ON AND ON AND ON UNTIL TODAY'S LONG PREDICTED NEWS.

Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-five

To an article on the latest billion pound write-down of Irish debt by Lloyds bank in the Daily Telegraph, linked here, came the following:

bonnifer

Today 11:08 AM

Recommended by
5 people

Yet more evidence of the unforgivable breach of their duties as directors by the then board of Lloyds TSB Bank plc. Formerly one of the highest dividend paying FTSE 100 srocks and a staple of UK pensions this company has failed its shareholders, its employees and its other stakeholders as a result of the egregious behavious of its directors. Surely there is scope for a private prosecution unde section 172 of the Companies Act 2006.

Gordon's crony Sir Victor Blank was asked to buy HBoS to save Gordon having to do so. This would have embarassed Gordon since all of the UK's problems would clearly have stemmed from two scottish banks, two scottish Prime Ministers and two scottish Chancellors of the Exchequer. Sir Victor's American CEO Eric Daniels and the bank's other directors both executive and non executive did not chose to follow their duty to promote the success of the company as required by law, despite the state of HB0S being no secret to any well informed person even at that time. Instead they chose follow Sir Victor into the Valley of Death. Death or Glory may have been an appropriate motto for the 17th Lancers but it has no place in Corporate Governance.

(Edited by author 1 hour ago)

For all this blog has had to say on the Lloyds Bank outrage enter Lloyds Hbos in the blog search bar, or just click on the same words on the label below!

Lloyds HBOS and secret 25.4 billion pounds

This blog has always maintained the Lloyds/HBOS arrangement was sure to end in disaster. The main question now, with a huge rights issue dilemma facing investors, is from WHERE did the 25.4 billion used by Lloyds to repay, in January of this year ,the secret Bank of England loan revealed today by Mervyn King, COME .... Could it have been another, as yet undisclosed, secret Bank of England loan? Also worth asking: How could Parliament have been kept in the dark about these huge taxpayer liabilities for a whole year???????? Why was this blog one of the few asking such questions at the time???????? Were not Lloyds shareholders defrauded by the Government??????????? When will the arrests begin?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

BNP Paribas Rights Issue

The Wall Street Journal, link, reports this evening:

What a difference six weeks makes.

Back in August, BNP Paribas said it wouldn't repay the French government's €5.1 billion ($8.1 billion) stake in the bank until at least early 2010. Now it is launching a €4.3 billion rights issue to do just that -- in the process leapfrogging a clutch of other European banks, including Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, mulling similar efforts to repay government aid, and Unicredit, which announced a rights issue later Tuesday.

Watch for developments in the Lloyds HBOS and RBS Asset Protection Scheme saga as the next stage of the credit crunch looks set to hit removing the world from the relative calm of the phony recession.

Read John Redwood on Quantitative Easing from here.

Returning value to money is the only cure, everything attempted over the past 25 months has been working in exactly the wrong direction.

Britain's one-man opposition?

William Rees-Mogg this morning heads his online Times column, linked here, "Brown cannot shirk the blame for Lloyds". Well in a sane world maybe not, but with one opposition party led by Camerloon and the still smaller one by a 'man?' more concerned with nappy changing than the fate of the country it looks as though Brown may well get away 'scot' free once more. Some quotes from the venerable gent's column, so obvious it should hardly need saying: Three people share the main responsibility for this financial disaster: the chairman of Lloyds Bank, Sir Victor Blank, the chief executive, Eric Daniels, and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. One would naturally expect Sir Victor and Mr Daniels to resign their posts. Whether or not the purchase of HBOS eventually proves profitable, the immediate consequences have been catastrophic.... It is the Prime Minister's position that is hardest to justify. He played a vital part in the negotiation of Lloyds purchase of HBOS and in the Government's negotiation of the asset guarantees. In mid-September 2008, at the same time as the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Sir Victor met Gordon Brown at a reception at Spencer House in London.... The article concludes....On his visit to the United States, he is reported to have suffered a spasm of anger or anxiety in front of some British journalists. “You want me to go on television and apologise, but I am not going to do it. I have nothing to apologise for. It is not my fault. Get in the real world.” In the real world, the disaster that has befallen Lloyds Bank is Gordon Brown's fault and his responsibility. Read it all and demand Gordon Brown resign, can you really go on pretending none of this will really impact YOU?... Yes YOU!!!

Warnings for Brown on his Lloyds Destruction

Brown leaked it via Robert Peston of the BBC on 17th September 2008 linked here. On 18th September among many other criticisms this blog stated, (linked here): If the problem is mistrust by bankers of one another, absorbtion of one bank by another will surely merely shift the target of others mistrust.... On 13th October, I blogged twice on the topic (here and here), among my comments were the following: Of course one cannot really say that a deal is continuing when the price has been re-negotiated downwards by 27 per cent but the join-up of the banks seems to be continuing condemning LLoyds not only to nationalisation but almost certain death! +++++ The only other bank presently involved seems to be Lloyds TSB which was perfectly viable before they became entwined in the machinations of the demented Gordon Brown - now presumably the Lloyds shareholders are to be punished/sacrificed for having doubts on the originally hastily cobbled together deal. British taxpayers can neither afford nor pay for this deal which does not direct a single penny towards the source of the problem - the exploded house price bubble...... Things just get stranger and stranger - Where is the Parliamentary Opposition? On 20th October under the heading "Battle for Britain's Banks" (linked here) my post included these thoughts: Last week the Marx inspired British Government declared war on Britain's Banks.... Lloyds and HBOS issues look set to become a side-show this week, although it is disturbing to see Legal and General recommend the merger, Lloyds shareholders should make their own calculations, large finance companies may easily be swayed by their holdings in HBOS when casting their votes a shareholders of Lloyds! The taxpayers can merely look on in horror and trust that all these deals may yet collapse before a single penny of the billions of taxpayers funds pledged, which can never be realistically raised let alone repaid, are actually legally committed let alone begun to be transferred. (Link on latest borrowing added at 11:30 am, here). On 22nd November was this afterthought to a post linked here: Worrying for annuity holders with Legal and General (such as myself) which insurer supported the HBOS takeover and yesterday approved the dilution of their Barclay's equity value - have they really thought all this through? On 13th December (link here) I despaired: The Guardian reports the meeting where the castrated shareholders of HBOS went along with those of Lloyds in agreeing the merger of the two banks which the mazed mainstream media insist on predicting will be a "Superbank" but in fact will result in years of debts for Britain's bankrupt mainly non-voting electorate and the nation's future taxpaying generation. Starting the New Year of 2009 on Monday January 5th (link here) I blogged:

HBOS Pensioners fear for the future

The insane merger of Lloyds with HBOS forced through by the increasingly demented British Prime Minister has hit another snag as HBOS Final Salary Pension Scheme Trustees go to Court a week from today to obtain some guarantees for their future, report here. Thus on the proper first working day of the New Year one of the PM's many demented projects, dubbed by his media apologists as a "Super Bank" we see the shares in the companies involved plunging even below their levels of last year. AND SO IT CONTINUED WITH 5 MORE BLOGS IN JANUARY AND 7 IN FEBRUARY ON AND ON AND ON UNTIL TODAY'S LONG PREDICTED NEWS.

Lloyds! Do any in England now believe they live in a Democracy

The Independent this morning, linked here, reports that a trillion dollars worth of foreign funds were withdrawn from the City of London between the spring and the end of of last year and that the run could now become a rout of confidence. It also has the following: This week, Lloyds became the latest bank to approach the Government for more assistance. A deal was agreed last night for the Government to insure about £260bn of assets in return for a stake of up to 75 per cent in the bank. The slide in sterling – it has shed a quarter of its value since mid-2007 – has been both cause and effect of the run on London, seemingly becoming a self-fulfilling phenomenon. The danger is that the heavy depreciation of the pound could become a rout if confidence completely evaporates. Why has this act of destruction against a viable bank been perpetrated by the Government with no calling to account. On 18th September last year, when the merger was first leaked I blogged (here) as follows: If the problem is mistrust by bankers of one another, absorbtion of one bank by another will surely merely shift the target of others mistrust.... If the takeover of Abbey National by Lloyds a while back was halted as not in the public interest how come the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds is justified in the public interest?... Re-establishing trust in Scotland would surely be best attained by separating the old Bank of Scotland from the Halifax disaster area... Now it is being announced on the BBC that Lloyds has become a government subsidiary. The shareholders have had their assets effectively stolen, although foolishly all along the way they kowtowed to the Government's demands, but under what pressure by the Government upon the larger institutional investors who alone could have swung the act of plunder! Can higher prescription charges only be applied in one part of a Democracy? Can the Government steal your bank? The answer to both questions should be No. Yet it is happening.... Can England still be a democracy?? How can the answer possibly be Yes even had legislative power not been passed to the EU? Why has the Opposition throughout this period not Opposed? (Update 0921 GMT the Government stake in Lloyds is now reported by Sky as 77%, another 2% loss over breakfast for the shareholders since The Independent went to press. What a Farce!) (Update at midday - at least one other commentator agrees on this, read here but Gerald Warner in his Telegraph blog is forced to ask in the title "Is it just me?" Just us it seems - unbelievably the Conservative Home blog is debating as its main topic whether the Tories are still right wing!!)

Huge infusion of wealth and influence for England's West Country

The proof that none in Brussels nor London could be any more totally useless cannot possibly be better proven than by the fiasco over Lloyds and HBOS. Do not forget as I blogged on the takeover on 18th September 2008: Final point on this fiasco - the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, was interviewed on Channel 4 News last evening and made several statements to the effect that the Government could do as they wished as he agreed with their moves showing at a stroke he, and I believe also his party leader, have no concept whatsoever as to the meaning of parliamentary governance. None in the Capital Cities or major urban conurbations of the Western world have yet fully taken on board the seismic changes now underway. People distrust money, people need meat, fish and vegetables. The West Country must prepare to prosper from its resources, it needs to identify with its neighbours who are now sitting upon similar precious assets along nearby coast lands, both in Ireland and Western France. The former urban rich are the West's new poor, the manipulated fisherman and farmers of the rural regions are the new rich. How much for a potato, sole or loaf of bread once Brown/Darling/King start their sterling printing presses rolling? When and what happens to the EU will soon become largely irrelevant as it lacks real resources. Present assumptions that following any break-up of the EU there will be a natural reversion to old borderlines, whether national or simply economic are absurd. Can Belgium now be re-united as it was before the EU? Impossible to all intents and purposes. Similar questions will surely arise in the East of the former EU, the Western regions of the Continent must also begin to discuss how they can be best prepared for the dangerous changes ahead. Is there a single figure in the Westminster Parliament any sensible person would trust with their savings or future well-being? I can think of none, but suggestions are welcome.

Lloyds HBOS over 10 billion loss stuns the market

As long predicted by this blog the HBOS takeover looks as though it will now take down Lloyds. The following is from The Guardian, linked here:

The new Lloyds Banking Group stunned the City this afternoon by issuing a profits warning after admitting that the losses incurred by HBOS would amount to £10bn, much larger than previous forecasts.

Its shares plunged 40% at one stage to just 54.9p.

The sharp rise in the loss is the result of a £1.6bn increase in the impairment charge to £7bn to cover loans which have turned sour largely in the corporate division which was run by Peter Cummings who has since left HBOS.

The size of loss that will now be reported by HBOS, which was rescued by Lloyds TSB to create the new bank, is even greater than the £7bn-8bn loss that Royal Bank of Scotland warned that it expected to make. The total RBS loss will reach £28bn when £20bn is written off because it paid too much for the Dutch bank, ABN Amro, and other deals.

The Times Online report on the same news is here. Strange is it not that this is reported as a surprise. More should read this blog which reported exactly this outcome on the day the merger was first announced and asked many questions all of which remain unanswered, read it here. Enter "Lloyds Hbos" in the blog search bar above to see how often these questions and concerns were repeated and ignored! The BBC reporter on business Mr Peston who has been ever verbose on this topic has added his two pennyworth here.

Bringing Brown to Account

The murk surrounding the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds and the close involvement of the Prime Minister and his henchman and media fixers (upon which I first commented here) had some more light thrown upon it yesterday. The following quotes come from Jeff Randall's column in the Daily Telegraph this morning, linked here: ....onlookers discovered that Michael Fallon MP (Conservative, Sevenoaks) suspects that John Kingman, the government official who now heads UK Financial Investments, the body created to oversee state shareholdings in commercial banks, was the source of Robert Peston's BBC scoop about the banks' pleas to Downing Street for emergency assistance. Mr Kingman and Mr Peston used to work together at the Financial Times.

This allegation, made in the form of a question to Mr Peston (which Mr Fallon knew very well would not be answered), is a serious one. It invites us to infer that ministers deliberately weakened the banks' bargaining position by leaking details which would provoke sharp falls in their share prices. In effect, far from shoring up confidence in the banks, the Government plotted to ensure that it could take control without unseemly resistance.

We should hear more on this next week, when the committee questions Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, Andy Hornby, his counterpart at HBOS, and their respective chairmen, Sir Tom McKillop and Lord Stevenson. A former director of HBOS told me that his board was disgusted by the way Mr Kingman had behaved.

Perhaps it's time for the committee's chairman, John McFall, to cast some light on the murk by summoning Mr Kingman to face questions. I don't see why not. Mr Kingman is one of the most influential figures in British financial services, looking after many billions of taxpayers' funds. More than most, he knows where the bodies are buried. Yet, beyond a narrow group of Treasury and banking insiders, very few people would recognise him.

(Blog editor's highlight).

A particularly pertinent point from my 18th September posting remains unanswered to this day: Last final point - why were the share dealings in HBOS not suspended yesterday, were the politicians or their political parties not somehow, or somewhere not making a killing from their closeness to the negotiations? Doesn't that very question highlight the real issue, who can trust these remote individuals.

Criminal activity within Lloyds Bank

The CNN report of the $350 million fine agreed by Lloyds Bank stated the following on 10th January:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"For more than 12 years Lloyd's facilitated the anonymous movement of hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S.-sanctioned nations through our financial system," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich.

Don't Miss

• UK government takes stake in three banks

"Lloyds stripped identifying information from international wire transfers that would have raised a red flag at U.S. financial institutions and caused such payments to be scrutinized," he said.

Although the money must be forfeited, under terms of the deal Lloyds will not presently be prosecuted because it accepted responsibility and has vowed to abide by the U.S. laws. After two years the U.S. will forego prosecution and formally drop the criminal charge.

In a statement, the bank said: "We committed substantial resources to a thorough internal investigation, the results of which were shared with U.S. investigators and regulators.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The British Prime Minister asked yesterday, 21st January, eleven days after the widespread report of this fine, by a Member of his own Party about the absence of any prosecutions or inquiries into this matter in the UK, quoted here, replied:

My hon. Friend is making very detailed allegations. Our sanctions policy against Iran has been one of the toughest in the world. It is tough on banks, tough on oil companies and tough on other institutions. I will of course look at the allegations that he has made, but I can tell him that we and other countries are leading the world in the sanctions against Iran. As reported by Robert Peston, BBC Business Correspondent, on his blog on 17th September, 2008 it was the Prime Minister who appears to have been the facilitator for the takeover by Lloyds of HBOS read here from which I quote: UPDATE 10:32AM: I am hearing that this deal has been negotiated at a very high pay grade level, with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, talking to Sir Victor Blank, chairman of Lloyds TSB, about how helpful it would be if Sir Victor could bring himself to end the uncertainty hanging over HBOS by buying it. Does not the apparent ignorance of the Prime Minister of the huge fine levied against Lloyds as conveyed by his reply in the House of Commons yesterday not then appear quite extraordinary, as does the non-reporting of the question in the UK media a silence as deafening as the absence of reporting on the fine itself by the majority of the media since 10th January 2009 when it was announced? Many wonder what has gone wrong with British banking under the regulatory regime imposed by Gordon Brown and subject to a speech by Lord Turner last evening, read here. My posting of 18th September last year titled "The Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds" raised many concerns still unanswered. Many deeper questions are raised than those Lord Turner chose to cover last evening as yesterday's parliamentary exchange and the media silence vividly illustrates. They would seem to go to the heart of Britain's system of governance.

Chilling news for Lloyds HBOS Shareholders and Taxpayers

Gordon Brown's grotesque creation, Lloyds S?U?P?E?R?Bank, which will not have its proper shares traded on the stock market until next week has nevertheless already had a portent of the likely reception these will receive from the ghastly losses of its parents' shares over the past days and this leak on the Builder website, linked here:

The newly merged Lloyds HBOS bank will set up a toxic vehicle for its housebuilding and commercial property investments, Building can reveal.......

The source said: “This is just like what banks have done elsewhere in isolating their toxic debt. The idea will be to get maximum value from the portfolio either through a sale or more dedicated management of the assets.”

The portfolio includes investments in housebuilders Crest Nicholson, Miller, Gladedale and Tulloch Homes. It also has stakes in retirement housing specialist McCarthy & Stone and social housing specialists Keepmoat and Apollo.

The vehicle will also include HBOS’ commercial property investments.

It is understood that the carrying value of the vehicle on the new bank’s book will be nil.

Let me repeat the valuation NIL, yes folks a big fat ZERO!

Shareholders give resounding NO to Brown's S?U?P?E?R?Bank

Lloyds shareholders accepted 0.5 per cent of the offered shares in the new bank double the 0.24 per cent take-up by HBOS shareholders. It seems a miracle that Brown's New Labour can muster significantly higher figures in opinion polls - a fearsome indication of the extent of Brown's government paid client state of drones who must be ruthlessly culled before Britain can recover!

Gordon Brown pushed HBOS to "Criminals"?

Lloyds TSB is to pay a fine of 350 million dollars (231 million pounds, no doubt eventually to be met from UK taxpayers) for what Reuters quotes as the following: "Lloyds' criminal conduct was designed to assist its clients in avoiding detection by filters employed by U.S. banks because of United States economic sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Libya," said a fact sheet on a deferred prosecution agreement between the government and Lloyds that was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

HBOS Pensioners fear for the future

The insane merger of Lloyds with HBOS forced through by the increasingly demented British Prime Minister has hit another snag as HBOS Final Salary Pension Scheme Trustees go to Court a week from today to obtain some guarantees for their future, report here. Thus on the proper first working day of the New Year one of the PM's many demented projects, dubbed by his media apologists as a "Super Bank" we see the shares in the companies involved plunging even below their levels of last year, a quote: Old Mutual tumbled almost 7% to 56.10, while HBOS, down 6.6% to 67.7, and Lloyds TSB, down 5.15% to 123.30, were both in the doldrums ahead of their merger. How long before those in the UK wake up to the fact that their future well-being is hourly being destroyed before their very eyes as they sit, say and do nothing? If interest rates are cut again this week it will almost certainly be too late for Sterling as I posted earlier today, but things develop every minute! As we asked on the day this merger was first mooted and regularly ever since , how can HBOS be prevented from destroying Lloyds. HBOS pensioners are right to worry but what do Lloyds employees and pensioners now do, surely they should be demanding the merger be halted, or is it now already too late for Lloyds as well?