Shadow chancellor George Osborne today warned rich kids in the City that a Tory government would not use taxpayers’ cash to bail them out if their businesses were in danger of going bust.
Within hours of the confirmation that the Government is to part-nationalise the Bradford & Bingley, he said the Tories would protect depositors but would not ask taxpayers to rescue bankers.
Mr Osborne told the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham that a Tory government would support a strong and responsible banking industry.
And then he issued a tough warning to the City: “If you take risks, then you must bear the cost. If you pay yourself sums far beyond what anyone else in any other walk of life does, then be prepared to lose it when you make mistakes.
“If you pay out big dividends when you should be rebuilding balance sheets, then you will be held to account.
“We will do what it takes to preserve liquidity and protect the deposits of ordinary savers, but let me warn you today - I will not tax the family earning £20,000 to carry on paying the bonuses of the banker earning £2 million. You helped cause this mess, and you can help pay to clear it up.”
The Tory spokesman said his party would always be ready to help people in need, but he said there could be no rights without responsibilities, and no help without conditions.
10 Comments
What a crass and stupid comment.
Osborne fails to realise that the majority of the working class pensions savings, mortgages are all in these businesses in the city.
He tries to target fat cats in the city but by saying his government would not step in to help he would be condemming millions to poverty in this country
Utter rubbish Darogan, you have not obviously been listening/reading over the past few days. The “irresponsibles” who have brought about the present crisis including this Government will get their “come-uppance” at the next election. Just in case you didn’t realise it, Brown taxes pension dividents roughly £5 Billion a year already, the Tories are hardly likely to make it worse, indeed they can’t make this worse, Brown has virtually put the kybosh altogether on the “old style” pension schemes in the private sector. As for “poverty”, the gap between rich and poor has grown under New Labour, so don’t let’s have any exageration or silliness, ie “condemming millions to poverty in this country”, this is the most ridiculous comment that I have seen for yonks.
Unless the tory party has had a sudden change of values I don’t see how the Tories in power will help the poor working class man and woman in fact I will go as far as to say if the Tories came into power they will push the poor further into pverty and the richer will be pushed further into more richness.
You mean the same as the Labour Government and party have done over the past 11 years. I said it in another stream and I will say it again here. This lot gained power in 1997, if they were so concerned over Tory economic policies and practices, why didn’t they alter them when they first got into office. They have had eleven years to put into practice the regulations that they now call for. They could have put a stop to these massive “bonuses” to workers in Banks and Finance Houses which encourage risk taking, questionable actions and dodgy practices whether the firm/bank is successful or not. They could have put a stop to Building Societies and Banks offering mortgages at 5 times the salary of persons borrowing them and they could have put a stop to these same people offering anything up to 110% mortgages. They could have put a stop to Credit Card and Loan Companies offering credit and loans to people who patently couldn’t repay the loans etc.
THEY HAVE HAD ELEVEN YEARS - THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING TO STOP THESE PRACTICES, INDEED THEY HAVE ENCOURAGED THEM. It is only now, when the wheel has well and truly come off that they sit up and take notice and wish to stop them. Don’t give me any rubbish about Brown and Darling not being responsible for this lot - or at least a major part of it, it occurred on their watch and they are in it up to their necks.
“if the Tories came into power they will push the poor further into poverty and the richer will be pushed further into more richness”.
The above is your quote, what on earth are you talking about. What “poor”, what “poverty”, these words don’t exist under a Labour Government because there are no poor and there is no poverty. Silly you, how can the Tories make it worse if it doesn’t exist.
see we know best, what ever our glorious leader says must be right, we are the best, we’re going to win, ha ha, get lost gordon, its time for the young tories to seize the throne
bit rich from osborne, it is these get rich quick, sod the rest, merchants who are funding the tories!! if young george osborne is an example of young tories, then it could be 2108 when they form a dictatorship
Stuart,
You simply cannot lay the blame for the demise of ‘Final salary’ pension schemes solely at Gordon Brown’s door.
There were a number of more significant factors which led to the situation where they were no longer felt to be affordable:
Firstly : Many large employers took a major pension ‘holiday’, during which period they simply stopped paying into these funds.
Secondly: The performance of the Stock Market, in which many pension funds are invested, has been rocky at times due to the greed of speculators etc.
Thirdly: We’re all living longer! You might imagine that the design of such schemes many years ago would not have anticipated the increased life expectancy we’re now seeing.
And of course we saw the whole mis-selling scandal over pensions - which significantly undermined the whole industry and many of the investments within it, including those from final salary schemes.
Peter, FACT, the FIRST inroad into private sector pension schemes came with Brown levying a £5 Billion a year tax on pension investment dividends. Prior to this, I challenge you to come up with one, I repeat, one pension scheme which went bust or ceased for want of investment or dividends. Pension funds as you are aware invest on the Stock Market and take the rough with the smooth, the Stock Market had a totally insignificant affect on schemes going out of “business” or, failing to pay the set out pension, they continued to survive.
Living longer, yes, accepted but not a reason why pension schemes folded. Actuaries etc assess all aspects of both pensions paid out and the amount paid in and both are adjusted accordingly.(One reason why this Government has allowed uncontrolled immigration into this country in order for them to pay National Insurance and theby pay towards the State pension pot). Private schemes operate on the same principle.
No pension holidays were take until after Brown plundered the schemes, tell me of one firm that either did not contribute to their employees scheme for a period or who stopped their employees contributing for a period. None until Brown plundered the schemes for tax.
The demise of the Private Pension schemes can be laid firmly and personally at the door of Master Brown.
Tell those who are now going without a pension that they had paid into, or, are receiving less than what they expected to get for all the years that they paid into it that Brown was not to blame.
Pension schemes were sacrosanct before Brown got his greedy hands on them, no Chancellor, Prime Minister or Government of any puruasion fiddled with them and we now know the result. This Labour lot promised that Income Tax would not rise, they kept that promise for a few years. What they didn’t tell us was that every other tax would go through the roof to compensate for their promise.
What we have seen is a Chancellor and PM boasting of the “good” years and the uninitiated, the thick and the “camp followers” taking them at their word and accepting it at face value because they don’t look beneath the surface or they are incapable of doing so.
I repeat, Brown had eleven years to alter things if he didn’t like what he saw or found, he didn’t and now, we are where we are, in queer street.
If anyone out there feels that the events of the last week prove that the world of international finance has got to be more strictly regulated, then you might be interested in reading the GREEN NEW DEAL (available in summary on the new economics foundation website).
One of the authors, Ann Pettifor, wrote a book in 2006, called ‘The Coming First World Debt Crisis’, which looked at the harm being done, firstly to poor countries and now to rich countries, by the unregulated world of international finance.
I’m not sure what George Osborne means by ‘a strong and responsible banking industry.’
Events do not suggest that the banking industry is going to be responsible without much tighter regulation.
For a summary of the Green New Deal on the Shropshire Star site, please click on http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/07/21/experts-call-for-credit-and-climate-crunch-action/
I would be interested to know what people think.
Do they feel that more or less regulation is needed?