Good article from todays Blind Guardian: The passion of the Co-operative Bank has triggered a dirty political war. Neither major party emerges entirely unscathed, but from David Camerons absurd conduct at prime ministers questions on Wednesday to that of some of his cheerleaders in print, the conduct of Conservatives has been particularly shameful. Some see the hand of the Tory strategist Lynton Crosby. Whoever is responsible, it needs to stop, for the wider sake of public life. Of course, among the sordid flotsam of the past few days, some serious matters have emerged. The regulation of banking, post-crash, is still inadequate. If a governance system fails, it might be better to find a way of making it work than to throw it out and introduce its opposite. And having ethical values is no guarantee of ethical conduct, an observation that applies to politicians and bankers alike. No doubt there are many others. All these are currently eclipsed, however, by the way the Conservatives have tried to milk a matter of real public concern in order to launch a nasty, untrue and utterly unjustified personal attack on Ed Miliband. The intention behind it is nothing to do with regulatory failure, nor protecting investors in a high street bank. Its about advancing a dishonest narrative, framing Mr Miliband as the weak leader of a fundamentally corrupt Labour party. This is the latest chapter in the book of Miliband, a man with a Marxist father who hated his country, in the pocket of Len McCluskeys Unite, in hock to a bank run by a crack-smoking crony. There is political invective, and there is a deliberate perversion of the truth. To lurch from one to the other debases our politics. The appointment of the Rev Paul Flowers, a man with less knowledge of the banking sector than a keen A-level management student, is a legitimate concern. The now defunct Financial Services Authority has explaining to do: regulators everywhere might consider whether the best answer to the lack of challenge by directors overfamiliar with the management – a recurring feature of the banking crisis – is to bring in people who dont know anything about banking either. The Co-op Group has to consider how to weld on to its traditional accountability to its members the skills and competences needed to chair a large financial concern. There are other hard questions about the trail of betrayal wreaked by the Rev Flowers as he resigned first from a charity, and then as a Bradford councillor, just ahead of possible retribution – and still ended up as a school governor. But he was never charged with, let alone convicted of, any illegal conduct: he should not be convicted without due process. Then there is the suggestion that Labour politicians improperly tried to smooth the path of the Britannia merger, which happened on their watch. As it happens, no more improperly than Tory ministers were anxious for Project Verde, the banks proposed takeover of 630 of Lloyds high street banks. They were so anxious that the chancellor, according to the Financial Times, was prepared to plead for special treatment in Europe. After 2008, they all have some responsibility for trying to blur regulatory lines in order to foster a challenger bank. They took the Co-op, unscathed by the crisis, and encouraged it to man up and act like a real bank. Yes, there are the loans to the Labour party. But, some more facts. The Co-op party was set up to promote mutualism. It has been affiliated to Labour (and sometimes a major influence on policy) since 1917. It would be odd, even plain perverse, for Labour to shun an organisation that shares its objectives and, until recently, was run on strictly ethical lines. Rightly, Mr Miliband has resisted the urge to retaliate to his attackers in vituperative kind. Thats practical as well as principled. In political mud wrestling, both sides end up filthy. The Labour leader must go on addressing the real substance. Its been a tough week for him. Its been terrible for the Tories. Their tactic of playing the man not the ball undermines politics as a whole and blocks the conversation that the country needs to have.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 08:53:36 +0000
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