Dines' Days

RBS - a tale of gloom and despondency

IT seems inconceivable that the Government will let the Royal Bank of Scotland collapse, and not just because the magic word "Scotland" is in the banking giant's name. The RBS group includes NatWest, Coutts - in which every depositor is likely to have far more than the £50,000 repayment guarantee - and Direct Line and Churchill insurance companies.

Concerns over the group have continued to dog Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), with today's share price fall coming on top of a 61% dive in stock value since the beginning of the year.

RBS, the most exposed UK bank to the economic meltdown started by sub-prime lending (toxic mortgages), has grown in recent years from a small Scottish bank that printed bank notes to one of the giants in the banking world. But it seems to have over extended itself in an ill-timed takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro, which led to the financial services group having to ask shareholders for £12 billion earlier this year - the biggest rights issue in UK corporate history.

It then announced its first loss in 40 years as it unveiled first half figures, but moved to assure investors that its fundraising efforts had sufficiently strengthened its finances.

Let it go under? No. The UK banking sector would never recover, confidence in an already shaky sector would collapse immediately, and - more important politically - the Government would be plunged into a turmoil from which it would never recover.

Little has been said in this crisis about the effect on pensions. Surely the millions of people who have been paying into private and company pension funds need as much reassurance and protection as the banks and building societies.

Should a giant life assurance and pension group crash, similar to Equitable Life, then the hopes and aspirations of tens of thousands of UK citizens would lie at the feet of corporate greed.

Return of New Labour's Four Musketeers

THAT Peter Mandelson has returned from Brussels to take a seat in the House of Lords to take over from John Hutton at the business and enterprise ministry is either a stroke of genius or the last throw of the dice for a tragic Prime Minister.

If you're inclined to support Gordon Brown. you'll be hoping that Mandelson's experience and mastery of the black arts of spin will somehow keep the Prime Minister on course to see off David Cameron.

But it's more likely that Brown is trying to shore up his fragile position in the Labour Party. He's safe until next year's European elections - and he has thrown down the gauntlett to the plotters against him in the Cabinet and on the backbenches.

Bringing Mandelson back is code for: "Mandy's for me, thus you should be too."

It's the price Brown has had to pay for being shored up by Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell. The four New Labour musketeers are back in business: Brown, Mandelson, Blair and Campbell

Mandy is a figure hated by the unions and the left wing of the party but would they rather have a united Labour Party which wins the next election, or a disunited party which hands power to the Conservatives?

After a successful Birmingham conference, David Cameron has much to ponder this week-end because Mandelson could turn out to be Brown's saviour - unless, of course, he has to quit for a third time!

On the other hand, a Cabinet featuring prominent retreads - Margaret Beckett returns from her caravan tour, with the brief of knocking heads together as Cabinet enforcer - will be more vulnerable to charges that it is made up of yesterday's men and women. And "time for a change" has consistently proved to be one of the most powerful of all election slogans.

`I'm no novice' Cameron Rattles Brown's cage

INSTANT judgement on a political speech is often counter-productive. The contents haven't yet sunk in, but with deadlines to meet and trains to catch, you remember the sound bites as you dash off comment.

David Cameron's neat rejoinder yesterday to Gordon Brown's plea that the current economic mess is no time to give a novice centre stage was to assert he had the character and judgement to become Prime Minister. Change was needed, not more of the same.

Standing on a stage once home to maestro Sir Simon Rattle, Cameron delivered the best of the trio of speeches he has made to the Tory Party conference since becoming leader. But it was spoiled by being far too long - if he'd lopped 10 minutes off, it might have ranked alongside the greatest of Margaret Thatcher in her hey day. And there was no need to pander to tokenism with five parliamentary candidates of every race and gender doing the warm up act.

Given the gravity of the financial meltdown, Cameron's speech went through many alterations and did not achieve the headlines it deserved. Which must be a huge relief to Gordon Brown. In execution and delivery, Cameron is head and shoulders above the Prime Minister, and he easily laps Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Cameron again showed leadership qualities which will worry the team advising Gordon Brown, who as soon as stock markets quieten will be dragged back into the blame game as rising food, fuel, heating and mortgage prices anger the electorate.

Cameron is not yet the finished product, and Gordon Brown and his Labour critics know that when he becomes the almost perfect politician - with much of Fleet Street singing his praises - he will be a formidable opponent and a tough nut to crack.

Turmoil rescues Brown for now

DAVID Cameron may well be a Prime Minister in waiting, but paradoxically, this financial turmoil which threatens to engulf us all seems to be increasing the popularity of Gordon Brown.

Many of the regulatory measures put in place by Brown when he was Chancellor have failed and testament to that are the nationalisations of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. Yet in a crisis, the British instinctively show support for the country's poliical leadership if it is robust and decisive.

The Labour bounce in the polls after its conference failed to assassinate Brown was natural. The Conservatives were hoping for their own bounce after this week in Birmingham, but with their conference suffering from a distinct lack of media prominence given the events on world stock markets, there is now little liklihood of this.

Gordon Brown has been given breathing space by the rebels in his own party. If any challenge is to come, and that is looking increasingly unlikely, then it will be next June if the European and council election results are bad for Labour. However, the odds on Brown leading Labour into the election are shortening

Bin Laden has the last laugh

WITH the world's finances in turmoil, Osama Bin Laden will be laughing long and loud in his cave somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Bin Laden's aim is to bring down the west, and seeing the US and Britain on their knees having been consumed by corporate greed will be so special for him. The danger for us all is that at this very moment of our weakness, Bin Laden could engineer a massive terrorist strike to dastardly that it could lead to our total collapse.

And with the world so pre-occupied, what's the betting that Iran will carry out his threat to drive Israel, zionism, and Jews into the sea.

Turbulent times.

Comrades: Keep right on to the end of the road

HE certainly raised his game in Manchester. The conference delegates loved him. But still the suspicions remain that Labour is not entirely happy with Gordon Brown. Further polling evidence came even as Brown spoke of the relentless march of the Conservatives, but there has been a Brown bounce in the next set of polls.

However should David Cameron still be captivating the public after his conference speech, then the obscure town of Glenrothes in the Kingdom of Fife may well seal the fate of the Prime Minister when it goes to the polls in the next few weeks.

Otherwise, expect a turbulent winter as Labour contemplates disaster in the European and county council polls in June next year.

Miliband processes around the conference - but be aware of the Green Cardinal

DAVID Miliband has a certain look of arrogance about him. In days of old it would be dubbed patrician.

At every opportunity, he walks around the exhibitors' section of the Labour conference here in Manchester, accompanied by an entourage of hangers on and at least one television camera man.

The real purpose of this royal procession fools nobody. This is the man who would be prime minister but who is afraid to take the plunge, Labour's answer to Portillo. In the middle of the exhibition area is a cafe where Labour delegates gather - and as soon as Miliband spies a likely soul mate, he bears down on them to discuss everything but how much more time Brown has got.

Much talk about David Miliband overlooks his brother Ed, the Cabinet Office minister, who is more politically astute than David and has the advantage of not looking like a spotty 19 year-old computer geek.

I get the impression that Brown is safe for now. Plotters may plot a good plot, but they lack the backbone to do anything about it. But watch out, for enter the Green Cardinal, the chairman of that hot bed of Feinian sympathisers Celtic FC, the Rt Hon John Reid.

He should have challenged Brown 15 months ago but ruled himself out. He and Brown are what would be described as bosom buddies. And I'm told he might be open to persuasion to bring down Gordon. What larks.

Maggie's inheritors - aka Liberal Democrats - quaff Pimm's after a good day's work jettisoning social justice

LIBERAL Democrat conference delegates are busy people. They rush pell mell around the fringe meetings and inside the debating chamber as if what momentous decisions they are about to take will get the world onto its collective feet in wonderment.

But they're a nice bunch of people, less beards and sandals than they used to be and unlikely to shock the political establishment with nonsense motions - such as protecting the rights of female porn stars as if the women were being dragooned into all sorts of exotic couplings instead of actually enjoying their work. Well, the Lib Dems have always stood for the under dog, if you know what I mean.

And the party was the one left in Britain that championed, and understood, social justice. Tax-and-spend was their motto as the Conservatives moved on from patrician, one nation sentimentality to bask in their own reflective glory of cutting spending and public services and to the devil with the underclass, and as Labour copied the Tories to attract middle England voters from the leafy suburbs.

Tonight, the Lib Dems stand accused of reneging on their good deeds. They decided to join the less income tax brigade, although there are some pretty pernicious green taxes still lurking in their agenda. Today's vote to reject tax-and-spend was hailed as a triumph for the leadership of Nick Clegg, still referred to among undeferrential journalists as Nick Who? because of his anonimity or Cleggover to celebrate his boasting of all his sexual conquests while at university.

As the unusually warm day turned into twilight in Bournemouth, the Lib Dems sat out on the terraces outside the hotels and swanky restaurants overlooking Poole Bay and King Harry's Rocks to down a fair number of jugs of Pimm's - a very Tory drink, but one which now befits the inherirtors of Margaret Thatcher.

Labour's message to the voters: Tories will leave you on your own

AFTER a year of unmitigating bad headlines, Labour is preparing to luanch its great fightback when it gathers in Manchester next week. And the party will do it not by going down the path of attacking individual Tories, but by the good old fashioned way of exposing their opponents' politics. The British are not the same as Americans, where smears, name-calling and attacks on personalities are common during election campaigns. There is something deeply conservative - note the small...(read more)

Hockey mom hammers the liberal elite

THE American establishment and its cheerleaders in the liberal media were well and truly rubbished in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's acceptance speechh as the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee. It was a tour de force of withering scorn to those who have portrayed her as an outsider lacking any experience or substance.

She oozed folksy charm that Smalltown America idolises.. She declared herself a "hockey mom" which will go down well with those voters who want nothing to do with the sneering edirorialisers in New York, Washington, Boston and San Fransico.

With a hostile media against him, war hero John McCain has an uphill battle to win the presidency. He also has to distance himself from George W. Bush, but his attacks on those who live inside the Beltway" - the lobbyists, big business leaders, and media tycoons - are finding support across the United States.

By choosing Palin, he has taken the fight to Barack Obama and the Democrats. I still think Obama is favourite to win, but there is a huge number of women in the US who have vowed not to vote Democrat because of the way the party treated their heroine Hilary Clinton. It was thought of these would abstain, but they could give their backing to Palin and their votes may be crucial.

If I lived in the United States, I would be instinctively a Republican. But George W. Bush would have tested even my laid back view of politics.

These are tough times in America as they are in the UK. Talking down the economy is a dangerous electoral ploy which could backfire on Obama. and the Democrats. As the campaign for November's elections enters the final straight, don't write off the formidable duo that is John McCain and Sarah Palin.

The Iron Lady struck down and vulnerable

MARGARET Thatcher has dementia. The 21st century plague is affecting more and more of our increasingly elderly population and our former Prime Minister is now diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

I have a maiden aunt, Peggy, in Hampshire who lives in her own thoughts, purely with her own imagination. No one knows what Peggy, aged 86, is thinking because she is unable to explain anything and even if she does recall fleeting incidents from her past, she'll soon forget them. If I speak to her on the phone, she sounds cheerful but doesn't know where she is and doesn't understand why she's in this room with a dozen or so nodding heads.

Hopefully, the revelation that Lady T has dementia will focus attention on this unfair and incurable illness. That the giant of Britain's post war politics should end her days like this may please some people, blaming her for much of the social injustice which has been visited on this country in the past three decades.

But whatever your political allegiance, there should not be any jubilating at her misfortune. Cruel remarks started about Ronald Reagan, when he became ill with Alzheimer's. But to enjoy the suffering of others who have a condition to which we could all fall prey does absolutely nothing for Peggy and all the others who are so pitiful through no fault of their own.

The agonies of Gordon, Tessa and Andy

THERE they were, the Prime Minister, the Olympics 2012 mininister, and the Culture Secretary, all lined up anxious to get in on the act as our Olympics heroes arrived back in London from their triumphs in Beijing.

The motley crew of Gordon Brown, Tessa Jowell and Andy Burnham tried to look happy - no doubt they were, proud just as much as we all were - as they glad handed the competitiors who seemed completely taken aback by the reception laid on for them.

But the Government trio will have had on their minds the very real prospect that when the Olympics heads to Stratford in east London in 2012, David Cameron will be the Prime Minister, milking for all its worth the planning put in by this Labour government.

The writing was on the wall when Boris Johnson garnered more than a milllion votes as he swept to victory in the London mayoral contest. This week, he grabbed all the front page photos as he flew the flag for Britain at the Beijing closing ceremony. It was as if Gordon Brown hadn't bothered to turn up with the Fleet Street media corps. And unless Boris makes an absolute cods of running London in the next four years, our Tory mayor will be sharing the limelight with the Government.

Politics is a grim business. It was the Labour government which encouraged London's bold bid to host the 2012 Games, with little hope of success. But win it London did, and firstly Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown enthusiastically embraced the great opportunity London and Britain had been given.

But if the opinion polls are right, there is no way back for Labour from the electoral trough it now finds itself in. The Tories and David Cameron look set to return to power, and Labour will be sitting in the two and nine's (ok then, more like £60 quid for a ticket).

Olympian Boris has what it takes

BORIS Johnson may sound like Bertie Wooster and act as a baffoon, yet he is the leading intellect by far in today's political firmament. Under that mop of golden hair, the Mayor of London will use the next four years - and if re-elected in 2012, another four - to cement his position in the Conservative Party as heir to David Cameron.

George Osborne may well regard himself as Cameron's natural successor. His partnership with the Tory leader, forged more than a decade ago in the dying embers of Thatcherism, is similar to the once close friendship of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But unlike Brown, he doesn't sulk, brood, and lock himself away in anger.

However, Osborne has one huge disadvantage. He's a moneyed toof, even better minted than Cameron, and he lacks the personality and personal touch which makes Cameron so attractive.

Let's assume Cameron becomes Prime Minister in 2010, and is re-elected in 2015. A year later, Johnson's second term as London Mayor ends in either defeat or retirement. A by-election in a safe seat and Boris returns to the Commons, positioning himself to become Tory leader and Prime Minister in 2018.

I know there are all sorts of ifs and buts in this roadmap. But as Johnson prepares to take to the world stage on Sunday in Beijing - he will accept the Olympic torch on behalf of London before a worldwide television audience of billions, totally overshadowing Gordon Brown who'll also be at the ceremony - it's not difficult to imagine that within a decade from now, Johnson will be Tory leader and probably Prime Minister.

Johann Hari, you are so right

IT'S not often that I comment on other people's articles in the media, but one which caught my attention in yeterday's Independent needs further distribution. Johann Hari, a journalist with whom I don't often find my self in agreement, penned a reasoned article in the opinion & debate section entitled We need to stop being such cowards about Islam.

Hari reports that as Europe eases the suffocating blasphemy laws that hinder criticism of Christianity, we are being shackled by attempts to bring in legislation which would prevent criticism of Islam. But Governments won't be enforcing this ban, it will be jihadists who will judge what is fair comment and what is not permissible."I seriously considered not writing this column, but the right to criticise religion is as precious - and hard-won - as the right to criticise government. We have to use it or lose it."

Hari argues: "The greatest criticism is internal: it is in all the books that will never be written and all the films that will never be shot, because we are afraid."

He adds: "It is condescending to treat Muslims like excitable children who cannot cope with the probing, mocking treatment we hand out to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.

"There is now a pincer movement trying to silence critical discussion of Islam. To one side, fanatics threaten to kill you; to the other, critics call you Islamophobic. When we pulp books out of fear of fundamentalism, we are decapitatimg the most precious freedom we have."

The BBC would never screen a programme in which the Koran is torn up, but would happily allow a scene in which the Bible was mocked - and would defend their action using free-thinking leftist logic. To take it to a more gutter level - I once watched a programme where the hero masturbated into an open Bible. Imagine the uproar if that had been the Koran.

Here's the link to read the full Hari article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-we-need-to-stop-being-such-cowards-about-islam-894361.html

It can also be found via my del.icio.us bookmark site:

http://del.icio.us/grazzer

The race industry upsets native Brits

I HAVE no truck with racists. But while there is much to be gained from encouraging diversity and multiculturalism, if it comes at the cost of unsettling the fabric of our society, it can be a danger to the peaceful and harmonious life which we all crave.

According to the latest Citizenship Survey published today by the Department for Communities and Local Government, almost a third of white people believe they are the victims of racism in public services. A growing number also claim to have been discriminated against in the workplace.

Of those white people interviewed, 29% thought public sector workers discriminated against them in favour of other ethnic groups, while the proportion of people from minority ethnic groups who felt they would be treated worse than other races by at least one of eight public service organisations went down from 38% in 2001 to 34% in 2007-08.

Overall, 84% of Britons said they felt they belonged strongly to the country, but Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi people living in the UK felt stronger ties to the country than whites. Pakistani and Indian people are also more likely than white people to feel a strong sense of belonging to their neighbourhood (85% and 80% respectively compared with 75%).

I don't know if the survey participants were randomly or scientifically chosen. But if we are to staunch the support for far right groups, perhaps it's time to ditch the positive discrimination experiment which, while noble in sentiment, may be in danger of storing up problems for the future.