TBH the best thing that could happen is for the Tories to stamp on the idea while Lib Dems make news worthy speeches about it. It’ll only help our (pro-regulation) cause further down the line.

“will “stamp on any attempt to curb bank bonuses further”.

Of course Pip Squeak will help the bankers in their rigged markets. That is the system that tories love.

I think it was the use of the word “spivs” which was silly.

IMO Vince Cable was trying to stir up some enthusiasm in the LibDem Conference for two minutes of Orwellian hate for bankers so delegates would forget all about the faltering economy and the forthcoming public sector spending cuts.

He was right about Adam Smith, of course:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/smith/wealbk01

Cable’s colleague: “Chris Huhne threatened to get heavy-handed with gas and electricity providers on Tuesday, warning that he would step in if the industry failed to tell customers about price rises.

“The energy secretary hit out at providers who ‘put up their prices without telling you for three months’.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b044951a-c5b4-11df-ab48-00144feab49a.html

We have a Tory government which Clegg has greatly joined in all but name. The rest of the Lib Dems can carry on being Lib Dems, it’t not going to affect the Tory government.

How on Earth did the thickest, most charmless man in the government become Chancellor? Did they have a competition or does Osborne have photos of Cameron in a pink tutu being buggered by Arthur Scargill? It was all very well having him as Shadow Chancellor where he couldn’t do any actual harm even though he was Michael Howard’s third choice for the job but this is beyond a joke. Two non jobs and a prospective career in journalism that looked a bit too much like actual work before he began oozing his way up the Tory party. His blank piggy eyes glaze over every time he’s questioned until yet another platitude along the lines of “aren’t the poor simply dreadful” finally makes its way out of his mouth. I fear for the future of Britain when this twerp appears at international conferences with other finance ministers, if the Germans offer him a goldfish he’ll probably agree to double Britain’s contribution to the EU and god knows what he’d promise Italy if one of Berlusconi’s female acquaintances showed him a whip. It’s not like there’s even the remotest iota of charm, his palid, flabby face combines the most disturbing aspects of Dracula and Liberace. Of course he’s been more than lavish on his expenses claims, even saying that two DVDs of himself were value for money at the £47 he attempted to charge the taxpayer. Meanwhile the only man in the Coalition reckoned to be remotely competent in the field of difficult sums, Vince Cable, has effectively been given a colouring book and told to play quietly while the grown ups get on with things.

@6: “Meanwhile the only man in the Coalition reckoned to be remotely competent in the field of difficult sums, Vince Cable, has effectively been given a colouring book and told to play quietly while the grown ups get on with things.”

There’s perhaps an element of truth in that although Cable’s department BIS – the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills – does have a range of responsibilities, including higher and further education, and what passes for industrial policy, such as policies for promoting innovation and maintaining the statutory framework for competition policy, which are arguably under-appreciated:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/

But my main point is another issue which has so far attracted surprisingly little discussion. Osborne has declared the government’s intention of reorganising the inherited framework for the regulation of financial services, presently the responsibility of the Financial Services Authority (FSA):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10343900

This is the consultative document issued by HM Treasury in July:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/consult_financial_regulation_condoc.pdf

As proposed, the Financial Services Authority is to go and its functions are to be largely transferred to the Bank of England, which is to have a new Financial Policy Committee, chaired by the governor of the Bank of England, with responsibility for maintaining “macro prudential regulation”.

Fine – but what that amounts to is to be decided by the committee, which puts it in a rather powerful position. In Lord Turner’s graphic phrasing, one of the new functions will be to “take away the punchbowl before the party gets out of hand”. By implication, in other words: no more house-price bubbles to rock the system.

Some commentators have observed that Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, is to become one of the most powerful central bankers in the world:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/mervyn-king-administrator-bureaucratand-governor-2005214.html

In Britain, we tend to overlook that the financial markets of the City of London contend with those of New York for the position of the leading global financial centre.

@1 What pro-regulation cause ? I’ve heard nobody talking about regulation, let alone genuine reform or even, god forbid, a Tobin tax.

Until such time, I’ll sadly assume your comment was merely wishful thinking.

@6 Schmidt
Dracula / Liberace? Very funny! I won’t be able to keep a straight face whenever he crops up now.

Schmidt,

“Meanwhile the only man in the Coalition reckoned to be remotely competent in the field of difficult sums, Vince Cable, has effectively been given a colouring book and told to play quietly while the grown ups get on with things.”

Perhaps its worth remembering that Vince Cable is maybe where he is because he might have an ability in sums (one hopes there are civil servants in the treasury who can do that mind you) but his abiliity to follow a text through is lacking. Adam Smith did indeed think capitalism might lead to cartels, but the one thing he warned about as a particular consequence of that was that government should not seek to regulate industries and therefore encourage the creation of close links within particular industries as they meet to respond to government – he was presumably thinking of guilds and the like, but the point still holds. Wierdly Mr Cable forget to mention that government intervenetion is, at least in Adam Smith’s view, likely to cause increased lack of competition.

@10: “Adam Smith did indeed think capitalism might lead to cartels, but the one thing he warned about as a particular consequence of that was that government should not seek to regulate industries and therefore encourage the creation of close links within particular industries as they meet to respond to government – he was presumably thinking of guilds and the like, but the point still holds.”

However, recall Adam Smith’s discussion in the Wealth of Nations (1776) of the duties or functions of the sovereign:

“The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain.” [The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book 5, Chapter 1, Part 3.]
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/smith/wealth/wealbk05

Governments in the course of the 19th century began to appreciate that unfettered markets had their downsides so Parliament started to pass factory acts to control working conditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Acts

The education act of 1870 created a structure to provide for universal primary education, funded by local property taxes, as it came to be recognised that schooling standards in Britain were lagging those in other west European countries.

A framework for elected local government was created by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 and the Local Government Act of 1888, which established elected county councils:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_local_government_in_England

When the Attlee’s government came to nationalise the gas and electricity industries in the 1940s, many of the companies had been previously set up by local authorities.

Winston Churchill was a minister in a Liberal government when he took through Parliament the Trade Boards Act of 1909. This provided for an administrative structure for determining minimum wages in particular low-wage industries which was certainly inconsistent with laissez-faire.

6

“Meanwhile the only man in the Coalition reckoned to be remotely competent in the field of difficult sums, Vince Cable, has effectively been given a colouring book and told to play quietly while the grown ups get on with things.”

Cable may be considerable brighter than Draculace (sp?) which is probably damning with faint praise I realise, but neither is he the Messiah. Despite my misgivings about the coalition as a whole tho, I would still rather have seen him as Chancellor.

It does kind of make you wonder why Clegg and his minions didn’t make it part of the price of coalition in the first place?