Gordon Brown and his approach to ” light touch regulation “.
It was only in November 2005 that Gordon Brown made a speech to the CBI regarding amongst other things the regulatory challenges within all business sectors.
He stated:
" We all agree that at the heart of the modern enterprise challenge is minimising regulatory concerns and I want to say something about that now. "
And went on to say:
" The better, and in my opinion the correct, modern model of regulation – the risk based approach - is based on trust in the responsible company, the engaged employee and the educated consumer, leading government to focus its attention where it should: no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch.
The new model of regulation can be applied not just to regulation of environment, health and safety and social standards but is being applied to other areas vital to the success of British business: to the regulation of financial services and indeed to the administration of tax. And more than that, we should not only apply the concept of risk to the enforcement of regulation, but also to the design and indeed to the decision as to whether to regulate at all.
In the new legislation we will publish before Christmas we will make this risk based approach a statutory duty of the regulators. "
Was Gordon Brown talking about MP's expenses in relation to a limited regulation of tax and finances? It would seem that Mr Brown almost foretold the demise of the financial markets with his " risked based approach " to regulation and the end to the MP expenses gravy train. Trust, accountability and honesty is something that DOES NOT EXIST in government or big business and this has been proved repeatedly.
Why oh why would anyone with half a brain want self-regulation across all business sectors when it's been proved not to work over and over again?
MP's can't regulate themselves at all, so why on earth would they think any other group, business or organisation would be any different?
THE TIME HAS COME FOR STRICT INDEPENDENT REGULATION AS SELF-REGULATION IS A JOKE!
Gordon Brown's " light touch approach to regulation " has just about bankrupted the country, brought unemployed to a 13 year high ( strange that it should be the same period he was chancellor and prime minister ) and public confidence to an all time low.
Is there anything Gordon Brown hasn’t given away?
Gordon Brown has spent the last 13 years, both as chancellor and now prime minister, giving away everything we have of value.
I'm not just talking about blindly throwing money at the banks recently ( £1.3 trillion in the last 2 years ), I'm also talking about our rights as individuals and members of the United Kingdom. We've lost our cultural identity ( partly through the poor to non-existent immigration policies of the Labour government and the HUGE influx of both legal and illegal visitors in the last 10 years ); the ability to wave the British flag with pride without fear of persecution from others, the ability to wear the mark of your faith without supposedly offending others, the ability to speak your mind and tell the truth without fear of being instantly branded a racist or Nazi by the political correctness crowd - where will it all end?
He's given our rights over self-governance and justice away to the EU; thousands of laws and regulations that we now have to abide by from Europe ( over 85% of UK legislation is now driven by Europe ).
He gave away the Bank of Englands responsibility for banking regulation in 1997 to the FSA ( the Financial Services Authority - a powerless puppet that stood by and did nothing in the following years to curb the financial disasters of the last 2 years ). Did no-one learn anything from the Nick Leeson fiasco that brought down Barings Bank ( £827 million losses discovered in 1995 )?
The Financial Services and Markets Act imposed four statutory objectives upon the FSA:
- market confidence: maintaining confidence in the financial system
- public awareness: promoting public understanding of the financial system;
- consumer protection: securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumers; and
- reduction of financial crime: reducing the extent to which it is possible for a business carried on by a regulated person to be used for a purpose connected with financial crime
I would personally say that the FSA has failed on all four of it's statutory objectives and should be disbanded immediately with all regulatory power being passed back to the bank of England and Mervyn King?
It wasn't that long ago that Gordon Brown was talking about the lack of restrictive financial regulations being good for business and growth in the UK economy - look where it's got us now Gordon!
He sold our gold reserves at the bottom of the market.
He raided the pensions funds of people that worked hard and saved for retirement all their lives, to leave them with little or nothing.
The list goes on and on and I'm afraid that he is the man who is SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for the dreadful state were in.
Labour adds another £40 billion burden for the British tax payer
Alistair Darling completely forgot to mention the fact that he would be forced to plough at least another £40 billion into RBS, Lloyds and Northern Rock in order to create 3 new banks, whilst singing his own praises on the politics show on Sunday morning. Nothing like transparency and openness!!!
Mind you, what's another £40 billion of tax payers money when you've already thrown £1.3 trillion at the problem!
He talked about our banks that " got far too exciting and too interesting with catastrophic consequences " ( roughly translated that means ' that the very lax and poor financial regulations that had been put in place by Gordon Brown to monitor and regulate banks were completely useless ') and then having " stabilised the system " ( roughly translated that means ' we'll throw as much public money into the bottomless financial pit ( £1.3 trillion at the moment and counting ) as we see necessary in the hope we might avoid a chronic depression in the UK ' ) he moved on to talking about "a safer more competitive banking system " ( roughly translated that means ' we've let the banks and financial institutions run amok unmonitored and unregulated, and we've now got to implement some proper regulative powers and far stricter business practice guidelines ' ).
He also forgot to mention that it was the EU that told the British government that they had to break up the banks to create a more competitive market under their strict state aid rules.
Alistair Darling is still living in an expenses induced fantasy world where all is bright and happy - he needs to get down to grass roots and speak to the man on the street to see what's really going on in the UK right now.
