Vince Cable – sly old fox leaks his speech and is everyones mate

Don’t you just love all the new politicians in charge these days. All fresh faced and scrubbed up – all armed with the “it wasn’t us that made this mess” excuse – love them, love them all.

But whose my favorite, Surf Boarding Dave, Yellow Tie wearing Nick, Daveward Milliband…. oh he’s Labour is he… hadn’t noticed.

This week my favorite has been mainly Vince Cable – the crafty old fox. He pre releases his “capitalism murders babies on the end of bayonets” quote and then delivers a few jokes about being Marxist at the Lid Dem Conference – brilliant stuff. He has a gift for doing the “honest broker” thing and of creating empathy – but will he do anything? (Apart from come over as your favorite uncle).

His speech was well publicised and more reported than his leaders (the Nick leader not the Dave leader). And what was in the speech – well errm – it was full of wonderful insights… maybe.

The link to the full speech is below – but in summary:

The banks need to support SMEs. We need Higher Education. We need to make sure capitalism doesn’t squash competition. Adam Smith was a very clever man. The Tories aren’t perfect. Labour don’t have the answers. Royal Mail staff will get free stamps when we flog it. Lets tax graduates fairly.

OK, OK fair enough Vince – can you please go fix it.

Top priority…. Go fix the fact that the banks are sitting on their hands and our QE money. And the fact that the Enterprise loan fund isn’t working despite the insurance premium demanded. 

Next priority – treat graduates fairly – if they get a good job they already get top tax rates – why should they get double taxed – what’s all that about. Why is taxing graduates fairly being interpreted as they need to get taxed even more – what a lot of complete twaddle.

The leaked, widely reported, statements of the bleeding obvious, from my favorite new uncle is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/22/vince-cable-full-speech

Vince enough talking – do something to help the economy.

regards

your new nephew

Crises – oh that crises – HBOS gone!

I can’t recall so many large and powerful companies changing hands so quickly or so easily. But the latest Lloyds TSB acquisition of HBOS is truly flabbergasting.

HBOS is the latest large scale change of fortunes - a sad day for the Scottish Banking sector. Though some may argue the sad day was when Halifax got involved. Just what that means for the financial sector in Scotland remains to be seen – but Halifax had already undoubtedly shifted a lot of technical decision making away.

It’s the speed of the collapse and the speed of the deal that beggars belief – and highlights the knife edge that the banking system rests upon. If reactions have to be so quick and so fleet of foot – how much of a crises are we actually in. Time will tell.

Scottish Bank Notes Saved….eh?

Good news…. Scottish Bank Notes saved! For Scots who have a tendancy to save anyway this seems like a pretty “no news” headline. I’ve been saving bank notes for years (well trying to).

The story is of course that despite Northern Wreck bringing the banking world into disprepute the Scotch Banks are being allowed by England Bank to continue to print their own money. Though the Scotch Banks have to surrender a chunk of money to England Bank to ensure they meet a liquidity test, and loose interest as a result.

We spotted a sign in the London Unter Bahn last week – No Scotch Notes. So Scotch Banks can print but that doesn’t mean anybody in the country has to accept them. Apparently it’s the retailers perogative to accept or not accept. The term legal tender does not mean – you must take my money – in fact it doesn’t seem to mean very much.

Legal Tendar at the o2

Scottish Money always gets a funny look when your not in Scotland. I handed over a Bank of Scotland tenner at the indigo2 for a couple of drinks and chose to look away as the waitress examined the image of Sir Walter Scott and the Glenfinnan railway viaduct. I’m not that familiar with the new notes myself – credit cards and debit being my normal means of spending – so I have sympathy.

She took it though and handed me my change. Later I realised the change included a wooden toggle from a duffelcoat, a used postIT Note and a brass button from a blazer. (All legal tender).

Chip and PIN card fraud

It was only a matter of time….. a team at Cambridge have came up with a way to steal your Chip and PIN card details when your using a terminal. The way you do it? Well it seems you replace the terminal with a fraudulent one.

To be honest it’s taken longer for someone to get such a story out than I expected. We are all handed terminals on a daily basis to type our secrets into – and we simply trust the device, dont we!

I remember using one where the LCD screen was misbehaving by blanking out and showing strange characters – the assistant assured me everythinig would be ok so I used it.

Looks like the Cambridge chaps have an answer. I bet it involves even more complex hardware and software. But I guess that’s the world we are in.