Wow! “We need to have a low tolerance for firms that consistently bump along the bottom”. With a warning like that from the new head of enforcement and financial crime at the FSA, Tracey McDermott, the Big Five banks must be……………….laughing all the way to the bank. We’ve heard all this sort of thing before: mistakes […]
Posts under ‘Whitehall’
Freedom of information: Blair’s hostility shows how important it is
Aug 1st, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Blair’s failure to co-operate with the Parliamentary select committee investigating the effectiveness of the Freedom of Infomation Act (FOI) shows just how important it is and why it now needs to be strengthened and extended. What he’s afraid of is, of course, how much more it will reveal of the unsavoury background to his autocratic […]
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Labour must challenge the canard: public sector bad, private sector good
Jul 18th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Nothing shows more starkly the relentless grip on the public consciousness (and above all the politicians) that the corporate sector has secured than the absurd fixation with outsourcing. It is automatically assumed to be more efficient, more innovative, more dynamic. Sometimes it is, sometimes it all ends in tears and the State has to pick […]
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Government drive for privatisation shows private sector not fit for purpose
Jul 16th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.It is a delicious paradox that the one persistent theme in the Coalition’s ideology is privatising everything in the public sector that moves, yet nothing has exposed the inadequacies and incompetences of privatisation so ruthlessly as the Government’s enthusiasm for it. The highlight at the moment is the Olympics security fiasco caused by mismanagement at […]
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Are there ‘sweetheart’ deals between HMRC and big business?
Jun 9th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The victimisation of Osita Mba is upsetting. He is a revenue solicitor at HMRC who worked on the Goldman Sachs case where the latter fought for 5 years in the courts to avoid a tax liability. But when they finally lost, Dave Hartnett, the Revenue permanent secretary, reached a private deal with them in December […]
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Is Parliament fit for purpose?
Jan 21st, 2012 by Michael Meacher.A month ago the Government was defeated in a vote on the floor of the House of Commons on a very important issue – the question of the level of the EU budget. The Government whips strained every muscle they could to avoid defeat, but having been decisively defeated, the Government simply ignored the vote. […]
