Osborne launches white paper on financial regulation

George Osborne has set out plans to abolish the failed tripartite system of regulation and give the Bank of England responsibility for maintaining financial stability.

At a speech in the Bloomberg offices, the Shadow Chancellor said the regulation system set up by Gordon Brown had failed.

And he launched a white paper on financial regulation, entitled ‘From crisis to confidence: Plan for sound banking’.

The document explains how a Conservative Government will create a strong regulatory framework, as an essential component of a sustained economic recovery. We will:

• Abolish the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Tripartite regime it operated with the Bank of England and the Treasury
• Create a strong and powerful Bank of England with the authority and powers necessary to ensure financial stability
• Create a powerful Consumer Protection Agency that will bring together in one place the consumer powers currently split between the old FSA and the Office of Fair Trading
• Demand that banks set aside much more of their own money for their risky lending as a form of insurance policy
• Appoint a Treasury Minister with special responsibility for fighting our corner in Brussels so that European regulations are right for the City of London
• Ask the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission to conduct a focused examination of the effects of consolidation in the retail banking sector.

At the launch, David Cameron said, "The decisions that led to (the banking) crisis represent a policy failure of historic proportions. We now need deep, wide-ranging reform that matches both the magnitude of the crisis and the scale of the hardship inflicted on the British public."

George stressed, "If we can bring stability to our banking system, and reward long-term returns over short term bonus chasing, then we will have put in place a key foundation stone of an economic recovery."

Darling blames the banks with his final breath

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am no fan of city bankers and their CEOs but I find myself in the strange position of having to stand up for them a little bit today.

Alistair Darling has said that he will not be changing the current tripartite regulatory system because there is nothing wrong with it. This I suppose means that the fault of the current economic crisis is entirely the fault of the banks. I suppose it could also be inferred that the public is also to blame.

But not the government!!! Not their regulatory system!!! What a load of twoddle Mr Darling!!!

This holds about as much credibility as the governments other recent claims that the local and European election results of late were all about the expenses scandal. In actual fact I think the vast majority of people will agree that things really go a lot deeper than that. They were a reflection of the fact that despite lots of media manipulation and hype, the Labour government under Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown has in reality achieved close to nothing after ten years.

However what the government does do consistently and unashamedly well is tell us...the people who voted for it that we are shallow twits that cannot see through the smoke and mirrors they use in almost everything they do including banking regulation.

The fact is they are not going to change the system for three simple reasons. Firstly, they would have to admit that they were wrong and that is something this government will never do because the system was the pet, the brain child of the current incumbent so they don't have the will. Secondly, they don't have any ideas and thirdly they just don't have the money, it would cost fortunes to undo what they have already done.

When the will, the ideas and the money has all gone as it has in this case there can be only one thing left to do....lay down and die!!!!!