Anyway, I was delighted to see Michael Howard quoting Peter Lilley when he was Shadow Chancellor back in 1997...
With the removal of banking control to the Financial Services Authority...it is difficult to see how and whether the Bank remains, as it surely must, responsible for ensuring the liquidity of the banking system and preventing systemic collapse.
The coverage of the FSA will be huge; its objectives will be many, and potentially in conflict with one another. The range of its activities will be so diverse that no one person in it will understand them all.
The Government may, almost casually, have bitten off more than they can chew. The process of setting up the FSA may cause regulators to take their eye off the ball, while spivs and crooks have a field day.
So where were you in 1997, Vince? Come on, tell us.
Hattip Conservative Home
UPDATE: The Hansard Reference for Peter Lilley's 1997 speech is HERE.
What is annoying me now is the Liberals (mainly Cleggover and Cable) insulting the Tories for their spending cut proposals, despite Clegg saying last September that he will cut £20 billion from public expenditure, which is more than the Tories have suggested.
ReplyDeleteWhat also makes the whole Vince thing annoying, is that the BBC stick Vince on as the official "opposition" through which all economic judgement of the government must be passed.
ReplyDeleteThe result is that if Vince says, the government are doing OK on a given point, then it is deemed sensible action by the government.
If, like the Delmonte man, Vince says no. Then the BBC invite us to think that there should be some mild criticism of the governments stance.
The BBC should expose a wider range of views and once, just once, bring on someone like John Redwood to critique government plans.
The reason being, Vince is a big fan of banking bailouts and his views differ little from Gordon's.
We do not get balance from the BBC if we are presented the Gordon, Peston, Cable view of the world only.
"So where were you in 1997, Vince? Come on, tell us."
ReplyDeleteThe same place he was in 2007 - keeping a sharp eye on which way the wind was blowing, before deciding which way to flip flop.
So, Iain, how come the remarkably prescient Lilley is on the backbenches, whilst the laughably unimpressive Boy George is thrust forward as Shadow Chancellor?
ReplyDeleteAt least the Lib Dems are making the most of Cable's talents, and much of what he says is "good stuff".
"So where were you in 1997, Vince? Come on, tell us2
ReplyDeleteThink you'll find Vince was the newly elected MP for Twickenham, not part of a government that brought us the last recession, and paved the way for this one.
Vince Cable is the BBC's champion, since he's not a Tory and heavily leans towards Labour's socialist views.
ReplyDeleteHence they are trying to set him up as a prophet.
'Hence they are trying to set him up as a prophet.'
ReplyDeleteWell said. It is becoming tedious the BBC wheeling him out at every opportunity. I'd certainly like to see John Redwood more often or even once. Not that I'm a fan of his mind you, but I do read his blog :)
Wasn't he still in the Labour Party back then?
ReplyDeleteThat should be on a poster.
ReplyDeleteAnd its good to see a Conservative recognising the 'spivs and crooks' that infest the capitalist system. And that we were clearly the first to call the disaster waiting to happen.
I call them barrow boys and have been for some time - well before the crash.
Its clear from the revelations about RBS in todays Telegraph that Goodwin has been economical with the actualite to say the least.
I am amazed there are no criminal investigations - no doubt the last thing Labour want is to give these bastard bankers their day in court. Tories should promise one and if possible private complaints should be made.
Merel - what stuff are you smoking?
ReplyDeleteLabour have been in power 12 years - only a mental inebriate could say the tories 'paved the way' for this recession.
The whole point of the quote is that Labour completely changed - padron me - buggered up the financial regulatory authorities. And then proceeded to cosy up to and give knighthoods to barrow boys like Goodwin.
(We should all stop the 'Sir Fred' shorthand)
There is mystery, Iain, least of all for you as you have been an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate, I believe.
ReplyDeleteFor much of the year he was on the doorsteps of Twickenham, working hard on his fifth attempt to get into Parliament.
After winning the seat and booting out Toby Jessel after 25 years, he became Lib Dem Shadow Trade & Industry Minister. The rest is history.
Cable only looks good against a background of mediocre incompetent twats.
ReplyDeleteI was fascinated by the quote from Peter Lilley from the Second Reading of the Bank of England Bill on 11 November 1997
ReplyDeleteA gentleman with 20/20 foresight, not 20/20 hindsight like Dr Cable.
trevorsden said: 'Merel - what stuff are you smoking?'
I'm no expert but I'm fairly sure it's Crack.
For further enlightenment read Ms Ece's Blogger profile.
ReplyDeleteThat was enough for me...
@ Unsworth said...
ReplyDelete"For further enlightenment read Ms Ece's Blogger profile."
Lol...thats the longest list of non jobs Jabba has seen in a long time.
Makes the OBE, Other Buggers Efforts, all the more fitting.
Peter Lilley was rightly one of the absolutely most loathed Tories in the country. The less heard from Peter “little list” Lilley, the better.
ReplyDeleteUnless of course Tories want to remind the nation of the Nasty Party so soon before an election?
Sounds of feet being firmly shot.
It’s highly amusing the way the ubiquitous Dr Cable gets so up the noses of Tories.
ReplyDeleteIt appears he must therefore be doing something right.
I don’t believe Labour MPs are any too fond of him either.
Fact is Vince “Dr Doom” Cable was consistently and presciently right when Cons and Lab were wrong.
He has thus earned a place as the soothsayer amongst TV’s limited supply of coherent and (vitally) nearby and available - Twickenham - talking heads.
Do we see too much of Dr Cable on TV news? Sure. Is there any other politico able to talk sensibly and in a highly articulate manner about the economy. No.
So get used to it. The poor TV producers aren’t exactly spoiled for choice.
Peter Lilley my arse. John “Welsh embarrassment” Redwood? I don’t think so.
Simon Gardner: 'John “Welsh embarrassment” Redwood?'
ReplyDeleteScraping the bottom of the barrel a bit, aren't you. (You remind me very much of some one called David Dee, who went ON and ON about Boris "the toff". Understandably, he does not post on this blog, where the opposition might be too much for him.)
Ece: "Gender - female". Gender can't be female. It is like saying the colour is big.
ReplyDeleteCable gets up our noses because if he'd been The Chancellor of the Exchequer the economy would be even more shot than it is.
ReplyDeleteI want to talk about 'The Nasty Party' as much as possible, in order to point out what a load of tripe that phrase is.
Yes there are many MPs of all sides who can 'talk sensibly and in a highly articulate manner about the economy.' They just don't fit the part of an amusing uncle who could be talking b****x as well as Wince Cable.
John “Welsh embarrassment” Redwood - enjoy.
ReplyDelete“The Nasty Party” © Theresa May MP (Con, Maidenhead).
ReplyDeleteConand said... “Yes there are many MPs of all sides who can 'talk sensibly and in a highly articulate manner about the economy.' ”
ReplyDeleteVery clearly there aren’t.
Are we discussing Vince Fairweather? The Vince who 'saw it all coming'? Can this be the same
ReplyDelete'economist' that I'm sick and tired of seeing on every f***ing BBC programme?
Goodnight Vienna said... “Can this be the same 'economist' that I'm sick and tired of seeing on every f***ing BBC programme?”
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. And Sky. Don’t forget he’s all over Sky - more so than the BBC.
Oh and he is indeed an economist. Used to works as one for Shell.
And the Daily Politics and Newsnight?
ReplyDeleteCable may have been an 'economist' but now he's a politician. Lauded from the hilltops and with no good reason. Cable blows with the wind.
Degree in economics. PhD in economics, lectured in economics. Chief Economist for Shell. Yup - an economist.
ReplyDeleteAnd lauded for perfectly good non-partisan reasons. Ouch!
Face it, he just pisses the Tories off because he got it right when they were wrong (and when the Government was wrong) and because he still is getting it consistently right.
How irritating is that? Count the ways [snigger].
The Canadians kept Strong controls on their banks, the same sort of controls that we had in 1997.
ReplyDeleteResult they have not needed to put a penny into their banks and they now have the best banking system in the world!
If only...
Do 'go away' Gardner and troll somewhere else.
ReplyDelete"So where were you in 1997, Vince? Come on, tell us."
ReplyDeleteSo where were you in 1997, Iain? Come on, tell us.
So where were you in 1997, OH? Come on, tell us.
Making my twin brother a multi millionaire. The bastard. Time for payback
Yes, I'm well aware Theresa May coined the phrase.
ReplyDelete'he got it right when they were wrong'
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of Iain's original post is that Peter Lilley has been proved to have been entirely right in the predictions he made concerning the changes to the regulatory system in a speech in 1997.
Of course in the IllibUndems scattergun approach to monetary and fiscal policy they were bound to say the right thing some of the time.
“I'm well aware Theresa May coined the phrase.”
ReplyDeleteAnd you can have a happy time reading it again (from 7 October 2002).
Then listen to Peter ‘bolter’ Lilley’s greatest hit for which he his justifiably still notorious.
@ Simon Gardner
ReplyDeleteTedious repetion of irrelevant garbage.
Simon Gardner: re ‘Degree in economics.’ . .
ReplyDeleteUp to a point. Cable read the Natural Sciences Tripos as Cambridge and got his first degree therefore for completing Part 1 of that Tripos after 2 years before choosing to read Economics Part 1 for his final year. Three years’ residence are required to graduate.
This is quite usual. It produces a mind better grounded in the physicality of real things than, say, PPE or the notoriously undemanding Modern History read by his Tory counterpart, though he is still by no means as practical as one might expect [I am one of his activists].
I think there's some truth in the BBC overselling Cable as some kind of independent expert - he can't always be right and, as Portillo has pointed out, Cable is much more a politician than he is an economist - but it must niggle with the Tories that he gets called on so much more than one of their own.
ReplyDeleteI don't particularly think Lilley is all that convincing - he may have said that about the Bank's independence and his comment about what amounted to dumping "control" of the banks on clueless civil servants in the FSA were obviously right - but I've often heard him praising light touch and the frenzy in the Cities when Thatcher and Raegan ended the tiresome old tradition by which retail banks holding our deposits were not entitled to speculate with them in the casino of derivatives and related spivvy products.
Can anyone by the way remember a single time when any of our leading politicians of any party suggested pre-2007 that it might not be in everyone's best interests to lend 125% mortgages to people with no hope of paying them back. Or critiqued the spivvy self-certification game?