Category: Non-EU Countries

Archbishop laments the “abuse of trust”

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said this year’s riots and financial crisis have led to “broken bonds and abused trust” in Britain.

In his Christmas Day sermon, Dr Rowan Williams said: “The most pressing question we now face… is who and where we are as a society.”

Riots in August were sparked by the shooting of Mark Duggan by police.

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Vincent Nichols, has offered prayers for Palestinians.

During his Christmas Mass sermon at Westminster Cathedral, Archbishop Nichols focused on 50 Palestinian families in the West Bank who he said faced losing their land to Israel.

He said: “At this moment the people of the parish of Beit Jala in Bethlehem prepare for their legal battle to protect their homes and their land from further expropriation from Israel… we pray for them tonight.”

In his sermon at Canterbury Cathedral the Archbishop said: “Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost.

“Whether it is an urban rioter, mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today’s financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark.”

Since October, the Church of England has had to handle the anti-capitalist encampment near St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s, Dr Giles Fraser, initially supported the Occupy London protest but later resigned amid suggestions of a rift between senior clergy.

The Book of Common Prayer celebrates its 350th anniversary next year and Reverend Williams quoted from it in his sermon.

“If ye shall perceive your offences to be such as are not only against God but also against your neighbours; then ye shall reconcile yourselves unto them; being ready to make restitution,” he said.

‘Mysteries of faith’

The Archbishop said the language of the Prayer Book may sound dated but he said: “Before we draw the easy and cynical conclusion that the Prayer Book is about social control by the ruling classes, we need to ponder the uncompromising way in which those same ruling classes are reminded of what their power is for, from the monarch downwards.

“And the almost forgotten words of the Long Exhortation in the Communion Service, telling people what questions they should ask themselves before coming to the Sacrament, show a keen critical awareness of the new economic order that, in the mid 16th century, was piling up assets of land and property in the hands of a smaller and smaller elite.”

The Archbishop said: “The Prayer Book is a treasury of words and phrases that are still for countless English-speaking people the nearest you can come to an adequate language for the mysteries of faith.”

The Archbishop also urged people not build lives based on selfishness and fear.

The reference to the riots is not the first time Dr Williams has addressed the subject.

Last month, he wrote in The Guardian about the “enormous sadness” he felt during the riots.

But in the same article he said the government should do more to rescue young people “who think they have nothing to lose”.

Dr Williams also said recently he was sympathetic to a “Robin Hood” tax on some financial transactions.

BBC

December 26, 2011
John Terry To Face Racial Abuse Charges

Chelsea and England captain John Terry will face charges over allegations he racially abused another player.

The player will appear in court on February 1 following the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor for London said:

“I have today advised the Metropolitan Police Service that John Terry should be prosecuted for a racially aggravated public order offence following comments allegedly made during a Premier League football match between Queen’s Park Rangers and Chelsea on 23 October 2011.

“The decision was taken in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and after careful consideration of all the evidence I am satisfied there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute this case.”

Videos of the alleged incident were circulated online and last week the CPS were handed previously unseen footage.

The Chelsea star has always denied making a racist comment to QPR’s Anton Ferdinand.

Reacting to the CPS statement he said:

“I am disappointed with the decision to charge me and hope to be given the chance to clear my name as quickly as possible.

“I have never aimed a racist remark at anyone and count people from all races and creeds among my closest friends.

“I will fight tooth and nail to prove my innocence. I have campaigned against racism and believe there is no place for it in society.”

Ahead of the CPS decision Terry’s manager Andre Villas-Boas said the defender had his “full support” of both himself and the Chelsea club.

n a statement, Terry’s club said:

“Chelsea FC has always been fully supportive of John in this matter and will continue to be so.

“The club finds all forms of discrimination abhorrent and we are proud of the work we undertake campaigning on this important issue.”

If convicted, the multimillionaire would face a fine of around £2,500.

Sky

December 21, 2011
French credit downgrade could come ‘within days’

Standard & Poor’s expected downgrade could create panic in the financial markets and make eurozone crisis even worse

Richard Wachman, City editor, Toby Helm and Kim Willsher

Standard and Poor's is expected to cut France's triple A credit rating 'within days' Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

France could be stripped of its triple-A credit rating before Christmas, raising new doubts about the survival of the euro, analysts have predicted.

Standard & Poor’s – one of the three top rating agencies – is expected to cut France’s rating within days, in a move that would weaken its ability to raise funds on financial markets.

The move would raise doubts over the future of the single currency at a time when questions abound as to whether the deal thrashed out in Brussels represents the breakthrough hoped for in advance of the summit. Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Commons Treasury select committee, raised the spectre of Greece leaving the eurozone, saying it was unlikely Athens could afford to pay its way if it stayed in the zone. “Few people believe that Greece can remain solvent within the eurozone,” he said. “Should Greece have to leave, the recapitalisation of a number of continental banks would be necessary.”

David Cameron and George Osborne have stressed that their top priority is for the eurozone to survive the crisis because the consequences of a disorderly breakup would be devastating for the UK as well as the European economies. However, most Tory MPs now doubt that it can survive in its current form. Bill Cash, the veteran Eurosceptic MP, said: “The entire European Union project is unravelling as the euro itself unravels.”

The imminence of a ratings decision by S&P may explain why France has sought to deflect attention by lashing out against Britain, claiming the UK’s financial position is weaker than its own. Last week the Bank of France suggested the credit rating agencies train their fire on London, even though there seems no imminent danger of Britain losing its premier rating.

After days of angry exchanges between Paris and London, both sides called for a ceasefire. A senior British diplomatic source said: “I hope all this calms down soon, as it is not in anyone’s interest for it to continue. That, I believe, is why the French prime minister called Nick Clegg on Friday afternoon [to build bridges].”

The diplomat added: “We can only guess that what’s behind it is that they’re so nervous about losing the triple-A rating, nervous not just for political and economic reasons, but because there’s an election coming up.”

Analysts said that if France’s rating was slashed its borrowing costs would rise, making it more expensive for Paris to refinance its debt burden in the new year. A downgrade would also hit France’s ability to contribute to the European financial stability facility, set up by members of the eurozone to combat the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis, and provide emergency funding. Traders in London said the price France has to pay to borrow has already risen, indicating that markets have partially discounted the possibility of a lower credit rating.

France has to pay more to borrow relative to fellow triple-A rated Germany: when France borrows over 10 years it pays an interest rate that is at least a percentage point higher than what Berlin pays.

One analyst said: “The overall perception is that French finances are weaker than Germany’s and this imposes significant extra costs on France.”

Adding together repayments of existing debt, interest owed and new borrowing, France needs to find €400bn (£335bn) next year just to stay afloat. An extra 1% would cost French taxpayers €4bn a year. European leaders are under pressure to boost the firepower of the EU’s multibillion bailout package after Belgium’s credit rating was cut by Moody’s, another of the top three ratings agencies. Moody’s warned that indebted eurozone countries such as Belgium would find it increasingly hard to fund their debts or achieve economic growth in the face of Europe’s austerity drive. “The fragility of the sovereign debt markets is increasingly entrenched and unlikely to be reversed in the near future,” warned Moody’s.

Rival ratings agency Fitch said it could cut Belgium’s credit rating, along with those of Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Cyprus and Ireland. Fitch kept France’s AAA credit rating intact, although it revised its outlook for the country down to “negative”.

The latest credit rating changes came as the EU released details of the “fiscal compact” deal designed to rescue the euro.

www.guardian.co.uk, 17 December 2011

December 18, 2011
UK strikes back at French criticism

By George Parker in London and Hugh Carnegy in Paris

Britain has described as “simply unacceptable” attacks on the UK economy by French ministers and central bankers, as tensions over the eurozone crisis brought relations between the two countries to a new low.

Amid fears in Paris that France could lose its triple A sovereign debt rating, François Baroin, French finance minister, on Friday said: “The economic situation in Britain today is very worrying, and you’d rather be French than British in economic terms.”

His comments follow remarks by Christian Noyer, head of the Bank of France, who said credit rating agencies should be more worried about Britain, which had “bigger deficits, more debt, higher inflation and less growth than us and where credit is shrinking”.

Initially the attacks were shrugged off by Downing Street. British officials saw the comments as an attempt to deflect attention from the possible downgrade and from new figures showing France had slipped into recession during the fourth quarter.

Nick Clegg, UK deputy prime minister, told François Fillon, French prime minister, that the comments were “simply unacceptable” and steps should be taken to calm the rhetoric.

Mr Fillon had earlier talked about “our British friends who are even more indebted than us”. He told Mr Clegg he had intended to illustrate what he believed was the rating agencies’ inconsistency.

France is irritated it has been threatened with a downgrade despite its budget deficit, at 5.7 per cent of gross domestic product this year, being lower than Britain’s at more than 9 per cent. Mr Fillon told Mr Clegg he had not meant to question Britain’s triple A rating.

Downing Street said the comments coming from Paris were “not the most helpful contribution”. David Cameron’s spokesman said the coalition government’s deficit reduction plan – one of the most aggressive of any big economy – had reassured the rating agencies.

But Conservative MPs were less diplomatic. Neil Parish, a Tory MP and former MEP, said: “I suggest the French keep their mouths shut and put their own house in order.”

Tensions between Britain and France have been rising for weeks and were inflamed when George Osborne, UK chancellor, compared market concerns over French debt with the situation in Greece.

David Cameron’s use of the veto in last week’s European Union treaty negotiations provoked attacks from Nicolas Sarkozy, although the blockade delivered to the French president precisely the looser intergovernmental deal on eurozone fiscal discipline he had wanted.

In an attempt to make an agreement more palatable to non-eurozone countries, a first draft said they would not be forced to comply with tough budget rules until they adopted the single currency.

Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy have not spoken since the summit, in contrast to attempts by Angela Merkel to patch up relations with the UK prime minister. On Friday the German chancellor phoned Mr Cameron to discuss negotiations on the new eurozone treaty.

Eurozone bond markets mostly rallied on Friday despite worries over downgrades of the region’s sovereign debt. Fitch placed Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia and Spain on watch for a ratings downgrade.

In thin markets, French and Spanish yields fell as some investors speculated that buying could have been sparked by banks looking to use the bonds as collateral for cheap loans from the European Central Bank next week. Gilt yields were also close to fresh record lows, while US Treasuries were heading for their biggest weekly gains in six weeks.

“A lot of funds and clients are no longer trading because of year-end and uncertainty in these markets,” said one trader at a European bank. “But yields for Spain and Italy are still very high and it is difficult to see them coming down much before Christmas, particularly with worries over sovereign downgrades.”

The euro traded more or less flat with sterling. The pound touched 10-month highs this week as fears around the eurozone started to prompt some sellers in the single currency. European equities were also more or less flat as they lacked clear direction.

Additional reporting by David Oakley and Joshua Chaffin

www.ft.com, 16 December 2011

December 18, 2011
Stand up for Christian values, says Cameron

Joe Murphy, Political Editor

Faith: Mr Cameron hailed Christianity

David Cameron today attacked a “slow-motion moral collapse” in Britain and called for a revival of traditional Christian values.

In a keynote speech, he condemned a growing “do as you please” culture in which people, including political leaders, increasingly feared criticising the bad choices of others.

“Whether you look at the riots last summer, the financial crash and the expenses scandal or the on-going terrorist threat from Islamist extremists around the world, one thing is clear,” said the Prime Minister. “Moral neutrality or passive tolerance just isn’t going to cut it any more.”

Addressing Church of England members at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, he went on: “Put simply, for too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong. ‘Live and let live’ has too often become ‘do what you please’.”

Mr Cameron, whose speech marked the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, said people should openly proclaim the explicit values of Christianity.

He criticised the notions that by “standing up for Christian values we somehow do down other faiths”, or that it was offensive to pass judgment on other people’s behaviour.

“I think these arguments are profoundly wrong,” he said. “And being clear on this is absolutely fundamental to who we are as a people, what we stand for and the kind of society we want to build. We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.” The Prime Minister admitted that his own faith was racked by doubts. “I claim no religious authority whatsoever,” he said.

“I am a committed – but I have to say vaguely practising – Church of England Christian who’ll stand up for the values and principles of my faith but who is full of doubts and, like many, constantly grappling with difficult questions.”

He listed Christian values in British society as “responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility, self-
sacrifice, love, pride in working for the common good and honouring the social obligations we have to one another, to our families and our communities”.

He went on “These are the values we treasure. Yes, they are Christian values and we should not be afraid to acknowledge that. But they are also values that speak to us all – to people of every faith and none. I believe we should all stand up and defend them.”

The Prime Minister said the summer riots were partly caused by people “shying away from speaking the truth about behaviour, about morality”. He added: “One of the biggest lessons of the riots is that we’ve got stand up for our values if we are to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations.”

He said faith was no guarantee that people would lead moral lives and stressed that many atheists and agnostics lived by strong moral codes.

But religious faith could inspire people to more ethical decisions. “The absence of any real accountability, or moral code, allowed some bankers and politicians to behave with scant regard for the rest of society,” he said.

An “almost fearful, passive tolerance of religious extremism” had let Islamic extremism grow unchallenged.

During his speech, Mr Cameron also hailed the King James Bible as one of the greatest and most important works of literature.

www.thisislondon.co.uk, 16 Dec 2011

December 17, 2011
Revealed: bankers’ secret meetings with ministers

Details of Treasury visits prompt fears Osborne will take soft line on banking reform

Ben Chu

The full scale of big banks’ lobbying of the Chancellor, George Osborne, to get him to water down banking reforms can be revealed today. Senior bank executives met or called Treasury ministers nine times in the weeks after Sir John Vickers published his landmark proposals on how to prevent another banking crisis, The Independent can reveal.

Bank bosses are fighting furiously behind the scenes to limit any changes to the way they do business. Fears are growing – articulated by Sir John himself – that the banks are successfully thwarting the Government’s plans to overhaul the British banking system and the Treasury is weakening some of the key reforms as a result of intense lobbying.

Mr Osborne also personally met the Barclays boss Bob Diamond, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Stephen Hester and Lloyds’ Antonio Horta-Osorio on separate occasions in the days before the Vickers report.

Mr Osborne will announce his official response to the Vickers Independent Commission on Banking proposals on Monday – it is certain to be scrutinised for any sign that the Government’s resolve to tackle the sector has been weakened.

The commission recommended that banks should be required to “ring fence” their high street banking operations away from their “casino” investment operations; and to increase their capital buffers in order to reduce the chances of British taxpayers being forced to rescue them in future. (Taxpayers had to pump in £65.9bn to save Lloyds, RBS and HBOS.)

The full list of contacts between bankers and ministers, revealed through a request under the Freedom of Information Act by The Independent, shows that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mark Hoban held meetings with Mr Hester of RBS, Mr Diamond, and Douglas Flint of HSBC in the nine days after the release of the Vickers report in September as they lobbied against the plans. The largest banks have warned that the reforms could harm the economy and threatened to move their headquarters out of Britain.

Mr Hester attended a meeting with Mr Alexander on the very day the report was published. Mr Hoban held his own meeting with Mr Hester two days later. The Financial Secretary also met separately with the chief executives of Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC in the same week. This was followed over the next month with further meetings and phone calls between Mr Hoban and senior bankers. There was also a meeting between the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Sassoon – himself a former investment banker for SG Warburg – and Naguib Kheraj, the vice-chairman of Barclays on 4 October.

“Bank bosses seem to have been down their inside track to the Treasury as often as a Murdoch editor into No10 under Andy Coulson and none of them were there to talk about the weather,” Lord Oakeshott, the former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said.

Mr Osborne welcomed the final conclusions of the Banking Commission in September and promised to implement them. But there have been reports that the Treasury is preparing to water down key elements such as the special protection for retail depositors and the new, rigorous capital regime.

Robert Jenkins, a member of the UK’s incoming new super regulator, the Financial Policy Committee, said in a speech last month that bank lobbies are “winning battles” over new regulation. He has also warned that the 2019 implementation date for the Vickers reforms would “allow lobbyists to chip away until the proposal becomes both unrecognisable and ineffective”.

Sir John told Parliament last month: “One sees evidence of lobbying activity in a variety of jurisdictions on these fronts and I think it’s very important both within the UK and in the wider international community that there is strong resistance. It is for Government and Parliament to resist emasculation or watering down.“

Mr Diamond told the Treasury Select Committee this week that the Vickers reforms would cost Barclays “north of £1bn” a year. He also told MPs that forcing banks such as Barclays to hold more capital risked stunting economic growth. “I do worry that we lean too far on cutting risk and increasing capital and too little on the impact that has on the real economy,” he said.

In quotes: What they said about bank reform

“We need to think deeply about whether we can sustain banks that are not only too big to fail, but potentially too big to bail.”

George Osborne, 8 April 2009

“The large banks with their casino banking practices need to be broken up.”

Vince Cable, 3 March 2010

“It is an impressive report and an important step towards a new banking system.”

George Osborne on the final Vickers report, 12 September 2011

“As long as we legislate during this parliament, I suspect, actually, the changes will be implemented well before 2019.”

Nick Clegg, 20 September 2011

“Unless we actually think about the deep structure issues that have led us to where we are, we’d be doomed to go through it again, but on a larger scale.”

Mervyn King, Bank of England Governor, January 2010

“I want radical reform. The key is we move to implementation of something that is effective and we do it without delay.”

Alistair Darling, January 2010

The Independent, London, 16 December 2011

December 16, 2011