The Peston Interviews
Robert Peston's revelations that ; that the Bank of England and that for up to two years caused a huge stir in the press and online ahead of last night's programme which almost 3 million of you watched.
Here's a couple of reviews of from and .
We've received lots of comments from people eager to hear more from Robert Peston's interviews on Britain's banking crisis.
So if you click on the following names you'll be able to access Robert's full interview transcripts as pdfs:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer,
The deputy governor of the Bank of England,
The chief executive of the Financial Services Authority,
The chief executive of Barclays,
Comment number 1.
At 4th Jan 2009, tonycisskint wrote:I am a British expatriate who has seen his life savings disappear as a result of the UK government action on the 8th of October 2008. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling might have saved the Banking industry on the UK mainland but they have done it at the expense of Iceland and thousands of expatriate British savers who are not allowed to open bank accounts on the UK mainland.
Towards the end of the interview Alistair Darling is quoted as saying
"I was very clear even before the turbulence of that week that whatever we did, we had to do it for the entire banking system. We couldn鈥檛 get ourselves into a situation where you鈥檙e simply fixing one problem because the problem was then moved to somebody else and you know we just couldn鈥檛 allow that to carry on happening."
But he he has not only allowed it to happen but he is the minister in charge of a government department (HM treasury) that has actually participated in shifting the problem somewhere else. Firstly his comment on the on the 8th of October "The Icelandic government believe it or not, have told me yesterday they have no intention of honouring their obligations here." This caused a run on Icelandic Banks. As far as I know he has not been willing or able to disclose the source of this information. The Icelandic authorities have denied his assertion and the transcript of his conversation with the Icelandic Finance Minister this lack of intent is not mentioned. Secondly, statutory instrument 2008 2674 was used to seize the assets of Kaupthing Singer Friedlander UK (KSFUK). At that time Kaupthing Singer Friedlander Isle of Man (KSFIOM) itself had a substantial deposit with KSFUK, in this case 拢550m. This seizure cause the collapse of KSFIOM as it was now no longer able to meet its obligations to depositors and its banking licence was withdrawn.
Alistair Darling has not, to my knowledge, answered numerous queries by MPs on this matter and has not even sent a "form" reply to my numerous letters.
Additionally, Gordon Brown has made false statements about the treatment of British savers.
On the 23rd of November he said on the 成人快手 politics show "these are extraordinary times and they need extraordinary actions....... we don't want British savers being pushed from pillar to post and that the government's job is to look after them". This does not include expatriate savers who are forced to use Crown Dependencies because they cannot open bank accounts on the UK mainland. I am a British saver who's savings have not been looked after.
And, in Prime Ministers Question time on the 10th of December he said that 鈥渘ot one depositor actually lost any money in Britain鈥. This is also untrue. Again under statutory instrument 2008 2674 the UK government has seized money on deposit in Britain belonging to KSFIOM and thereby their depositors, this money is currently under control of the UK treasury.
Alistair Darling is confused about tax status of Crown Dependencies. On the 3rd of November he made the comment (possibly attempting to scapegoat those who are forced to use crown dependencies) 鈥淲e need to have a long hard look at the relationship between this country and a tax haven sitting in the Irish sea.鈥 As a permanent resident in Australia I am liable for tax on income arising anywhere in the world, this includes income from my Isle of Man account. I imagine this is the case in many other countries. On the Directgov website on the 'Tax on foreign savings and investment income' page it states quite clearly that 鈥淚ncome counts as 'overseas income' if it comes from outside England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So income from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man counts as overseas income too.鈥 If the Isle of Man is independent of the UK why would it be expected to forward tax revenues to the UK treasury? Other countries don't forward their tax revenues to the UK treasury. In fact the UK itself is a tax haven. Many very wealthy foreign individuals have been attracted London recently precisely because the UK tax regime has been structured so they can avoid paying tax.
A survey on the Depositors Action Group website reveals the following: The vast majority, 80% had less than 拢250,000, 17% had between 拢250,000 and 拢1 million and 3% more than than 拢1 million. Hardly the financial profile of "city slickers" or "fat cats".
From the websites of the Depositors Action Group (1), 成人快手 radio 4 ipm(2), 成人快手 Video Nation (3), see website references below, I know of people who have been made destitute as a result of the UK government's action. You will probably find other examples here:
If the depositors of KSFIOM get 100% of our deposits back it will in spite of UK government action not because of it, unlike other British savers.
Website References
1 www.ksfiomdepositors.org
2 www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ipm/2008/11/a_twist_in_the_expat_tale.shtml
3 www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2008/12/10/vn_thebench_video_feature.shtml
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