Doing the Right Thing

Credit where credit's due, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have at last made, in my view, the correct decision over Northern Rock. The word is it will be nationalised. So maybe Richard Branson will not call Darling darling anymore.

Branson could have started a bank at any time in the past. The only reason he wants one now is he could get one subsidised by the taxpayer. If he had to pay a fair price he wouldn't want it. The rest of the banking industry had their chance to save Northern Rock before news broke on the trouble it was in but didn't, so deserve no say in the matter.

My disagreement with the government is to say it's only a temporary measure. Why not think outside the box as they say. How about looking at the German model where Deutsche Post buys DHL? Let's roll Northern Rock into the Post Office and have a national savings bank again!

Nothing Nice To Say

I was so hopeful I had something nice to say about Gordon Brown and his darling Darling. I almost did a post yesterday saying they were taking a principled stand and nationalizing Northern Rock. At least that way the taxpayer's money wasn't just cheap finance to some fat cat.

Instead he was on a plane to China along with Richard Branson. Today the BBC website says that Branson is confident he will get his hands on Northern Rock. Doesn't even need smoky rooms now, just a champagne junket to China.

Wouldn't it be good if instead of helping the likes of Branson it was the nurses who got the money. One of the boy Milibands says to the Fabian Society that Labour needs to show it's excited about a serving a fourth term in order to get elected. Well it might take a bit socialism to do that.

Does Virgin call Alistair Darling Darling?

Sorry about the Black Adder title. With Darling about to finance a Richard Branson takeover of Northern Rock by allowing a long and not guaranteed payback of the tax money put in, they certainly should. The love affair between new labour and the rich becomes clearer every day.

I heard cabinet member Tony McNulty on Radio 4's Any Questions allowing blame on the missing data CDs to be put on a generic "post". He must know that most people would be blaming the Post Office and not a private courier company like TNT who could well be to blame. On top of that we hear that the reason the data wasn't cleaned of personal details was because the department didn't want to pay Ross Perot's EDS to do it.

How many contracts with private companies are there that should be done by the public sector?