UK Cabinet Minister: ‘The banks are fucked, we’re fucked, the country’s fucked.’
January 22nd, 2009Via: Guardian:
As the Treasury last night finalised its second sweeping banking revival package in three months, Downing Street was preparing to go on the offensive, justifying the package not as a bail-out for the banks, but an attempt to protect companies and families trying to secure a mortgage. The £200bn insurance scheme is not for the culpable banks, but for their innocent customers, ministers will say.
The tone towards the banks is becoming more aggressive. Gordon Brown and a phalanx of ministers will say they share the frustration of the public at the irresponsibility of past lending practices, the slowness with which they have revealed their debts and their stubborn refusal in the past few months to release credit.
The tactics, however, betray a nervousness in Labour circles that the public will simply not understand why there is a second tranche of help going to Britain’s bankers, who have already received billions of pounds of loans, guarantees and capital. There is also a worry that Brown’s inadvertent title as saviour of the world might be slipping.
Opinion polls show government popularity falling in the new year. David Cameron may be internationally isolated in his opposition to a fiscal stimulus, but it does not seem to be hurting him. A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times showed Cameron’s Tories rising four points to take a 13-point lead.
Privately, something close to desperation is starting to develop inside government. After watching the slide in bank shares on Friday, one cabinet minister did not altogether joke when he said: “The banks are fucked, we’re fucked, the country’s fucked.”
