Bankers and business

Not surprisingly, big news this morning was revelation that former RBS boss, Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin doesn't want to and won't give back his £650,000 pension. I think his bluff should be called - it was bad enough letting him have this when RBS needed 'only' £20 billion or so in government loans; but now the full extent of the disastrous mistakes by RBS under his leadership have become clearer, how can anyone say that this type of reward is justified.

Back in Leith tonight, a good example of the type of businesses that OUGHT to be supported. Went to the opening of the Leith Business Exchange - I met a lot of small and medium business people who are working really hard to get through the current economic downturn, and to make sure they get out in a better position at the end. They're the ones that need to be encouraged - people working their guts out to make a success; some will do well, others won't - but none of them will be getting or will expect to get the multi-million rewards, for failure, which some of the big bank bosses enjoyed.

Bashing the bankers?

There's been a lot of interest here in Westminster today about the appearance by the 4 leading (ex-) bankers in front of the Treasury Select Committee today. It's not surprising - I've been inundated with emails from very angry constituents on the issue over the last few days. I've supported John Prescott's excellent campaign demanding the repayment of bonuses (see here for a link) but this really has to be only the start of a fundamental change in the way that our whole banking system is run - a point I was making in fact in one of my speeches in Parliament about the issue almost six months ago.

Fighting Fuel Poverty: North Edinburgh shows the way

I made some not entirely serious comments about the weather in my last post on this blog (and to be fair, I know that the situation has got a lot worse in some parts of the country over the last few days). But that does allow me to highlight one important campaign which I am glad I have been able to support - the new campaign launched by North Edinburgh organisations on fuel poverty. There are more details on my main website here, and this is a campaign which I am going to try to support as strongly as I can.

Wrong type of snow?

Just back from London, to find Edinburgh cold, but no snow! I mention that because of course the big story in London this week hasn't been the credit crunch, or the big international stories - but the weather! The normal media headlines about crisis, chaos etc. To be fair, before us hardy folk from the north start sounding off about wimpish southerners, it was pretty difficult for many people in London to get around on Monday, and to some extent on Tuesday, because so many buses and trains were taken off.

The question is, why did a relatively limited amount of snow (or a 'snow event' as we must now call it, apparently), lead to such disruption of the transport system. I accept that there is no point in the south of Britain spending vast sums of money on snowploughs etc for a once in twenty years event - but from what I could see, a lot could have been done by getting out gritters in time, and sending out teams of workers with shovels. I wonder if the political lesson is that as a result of decades of staff reductions in council direct labour organisations, many councils just don't have the staff resources they can redeploy for unusual 'events' be it snow or flooding or anything else.