Wednesday 24 September 2008

Public Ownership?

Or this?

Which is it it be?

Here in the United Kingdom, we can and must go further, building on our own traditions by transferring the rescued financial institutions from public to legally protected mutual ownership, not least as an example to the world, including the United States.

12 comments:

  1. Do you think those are the only two options for financial firms in the future? Enron style accounting practices (allegedly, in this case of course) or public ownership?

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  2. I overheard David Miliband at the Labour conference the other day (not in a lift!) He was mentioning that "damn Lindsay". Or something like that - it was windy, so it was difficult to pick up his exact words, but I wonder if I heard correctly, and if so he meant you?

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  3. Alison, I am beginning to wonder if anyone at the Labour Conference really said anything...

    Anonymous, unless you can think of any others, yes.

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  4. How about private ownership that doesn't lead to mass corruption and irregularities. Like, oh I don't know, every firm in every industry in the developed world, apart from the very few that are actually convicted of shady practices - as opposed to just alleged, which of course these are.

    Or is it your ideaological position that capitalism by default leads to corruption and fraud?

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  5. Wow! That would be soooo cool, if the foreign secretary was talking about you! I read you every day, and I have mentioned you to all my friends, i think you have some really good ideas for the future of our country

    x

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  6. I would consider it a personal insult if David Miliband ever did mention my name.

    We have met several times (he is one of the worst speakers that I have ever heard, quite possibly the very worst of all), but I doubt that he would recall my name, as I live in the North East, and he is of the New Labour persuasion, to whom the North East is strictly there to provide safe seats that are never visited.

    And he's not the Foreign Secretary, Mark Malloch Brown is. Miliband is just the Labour MP paid to pretend to be so in order to keep the Labour Party sweet.

    Thankfully, this week has seen the end of his schemes to be anything more than that. Slapped down by Brown from the podium, and required to applaud for the cameras. Priceless.

    I have never advocated nationalising everything. But we have now seen that the banks are permanently dependent on the government as the lender of last resort, something that we really always knew anyway.

    Well, certain requirements follow from that. They are not really private companies at all. They never were. They are both too important and too dependent to be so regarded.

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  7. But didn't he reply to your blog the other day? After his officials alerted him to the David Miliband challenge? And we know that civil servants monitor the key politicsl blogs to see which stories are breaking. Why not yours?

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  8. Oh, I know perfectly well who does and doesn't read this blog...

    I'd be surprised if Milly could read, actually. He was only given a First because he was Ralph Miliband's son, the same reason that he was let into Oxford - that much is simply a matter of fact.

    Rest In Peace, David Miliband, humiliated to death from the platform by Gordon Brown. On telly. What a way to go.

    What has this deceased simpleton to do with this thread, anyway?

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  9. Odd how many people you seem to get who cannot get over the fact that you don't think the sun shines out of Miliband's backside. They really do think that everyone in the world thinks that it does.

    This post is spot on, by the way.

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  10. Because everyone they know thinks like that. It's the same with Cameron. Or with opposition to public ownership, come to that.

    Ye these are the people running this country.

    Into the ground.

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  11. Oh, Miliband is well aware of your blog.

    Just be careful, David - the hopes of a nation stop at your door.

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