Vince Cable at Social Liberal Forum

Unfortunately I can't embed this storify of my Tweets from the Vincent Cable fringe event at Lib Dem Conference, so here's the link.

He was entertaining and on good form... Enjoy!

Andrew

A Lib Dem Gain: Vince Cable appoints Les Ebdon as head of OFFA

Cross-post from Lib Dem Gains, first published yesterday evening:

Today, the (Lib Dem) Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary, Vince Cable, appointed Les Ebdon as the head of the new Office for Fair Access (OFFA), the body charged with safeguarding and promoting  fair access to Universities and helping ensure that admission policies do not unfairly discriminate against those in state schools or from less privileged backgrounds.

Tory backbenchers (as well as Michael Gove and, it is said, David Cameron) were against the move, and the right-wing media are crying foul. These pieces, from The Telegraph and The Spectator, are especially sneering (written, coincidentally, by former pupils at, respectively, Eton and Winchester who both studied at Cambridge). Much is made of the rejection of his candidature by the BIS select committee.

These protests smack of faux-indignation at a Government minister rejecting the wishes of parliamentarians and completely overlooking the fact - despite the fact the committee is finally balanced with 5 Tories, 5 Labour and 1 Lib Dem - the sections in the report which specifically questioned Mr Ebdon's suitability were voted down by Conservative members.

The truth is that the idea of a Lib Dem Secretary (with the support of his Tory minister, David Willetts) exercising their right to appoint the person they see most fit for the job. At least two of those committee members - Margot James and Nadhim Zahawi - come from precisely the privately educated, Russell Group University background* that breeds the sort of advantage that Mr Ebdon role seeks to help redress. A group that seem to want to keep the insular cloistered world of the Elite Institutions both insular and cloistered.

I can't pretend to know anything about the merits or otherwise of Mr Ebdon as a candidate, per se, but it does seem from a relatively casual reading of the situation, that Mr Cable has been right in asserting his ministerial power. Judging by the howls of protest from the right, I'm almost certain he is. If so, he has done so at the expense of a conservative/Conservative establishment who seem not to recognise a problem in the system, let alone desire any kind of remedial action.

Andrew

P.S. Lord Bonkers over at Liberal England has written an interesting piece on current University admission policies and contrasts it with his own experiences in the 1970's.

*In fairness, Simon Kirby, who also voted against Mr Ebdon, did not have a private or "elite" education. I couldn't find any information on Rebecca Harris' background.

The Storm is finally over...

As I've mentioned before, my reading patterns of late have been severely disrupted. Last night, however, I finally managed to finish Vince Cable's The Storm.

Unfortunately, given the length of time and sporadic nature of my approach to the book, I severely doubt that I have gained as much out of it as I should have. I also think that to attempt a full review would do an injustice to the book itself.

I will, therefore, restrict myself to a few comments and urge you to read it for yourself.

Published in early 2009, this is an immediate history of and response to the credit crunch. Surprisingly readable (with, perhaps, the exception of the prologue, it focuses initially on the UK and Northern Rock before looking at the international aspects of the financial crisis, including the impact and importance of the developing economies of, principally, China and India. Further chapters develop arguments for potential solutions, with reference to historical events and economic theories on both the Monetarist and Keynesian sides of the debate.

Cable has written numerous economic texts and had firmly established himself as a politician with a rare insight into such matters. As Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman he had the mastery of his brief - and his political opponents. Now as Business Secretary, he has the task of putting into practice some of the theory he has espoused over the years, albeit in unenviable conditions.

Although the world has moved on in the 18 months or so since The Storm was published, it is still a worthwhile read which I thoroughly recommend. All the more so as it's going to be a while before Cable is in a position to write another one!

Next up is a much lighter affair - Ben Elton's Past Mortem. Following Blast from the Past, however, I do not hold out much hope for this but I shall give it a fair chance.

Tossing a coin.

Blogging ideas are like buses... you wait all week (humble apologies, dear reader) for one to come along, and you end up with two arriving at once... So what is it to be - banks or The Archers...

Well, having tossed a coin, it's going to be about banking policy. My love of The Archers will have to wait.

In the course of my work today, I came across this story on Citywire. The first paragraph piqued my interest:

"Stephen Hester [Chief Executive of RBS] says taxpayers can and should make a profit on the banking bailout, but new Treasury Committee chairman, Andrew Tyrie, says the government should instead focus on improving competition."

Surely these two aims aren't mutually exclusively? We must ensure we make money on the direct investments we have in the banks, and that we recoup the indirect aid given to the banking sector as a whole. Doing so doesn't preclude working to create a new environment within the industry.

Of course, Mr Tyrie has a point - working to improve competition will be easier while we hold a stake in the industry, so any rush to divest to divest UK Financial Investments holdings will weaken the government's hand. That said, the larger holdings - RBS and Lloyds/HBoS - were always going to be long-term investments, in my opinion.

So what should the government be doing?

Well, Vince Cable wants to introduce a UK version of Glass-Steagall. Although in agreement with the general principle - the separation of Investment Banking from Retail Banking, I'm slightly uneasy about the idea of enforcing it on the market. While RBS and Lloyds are public property, HSBC and Barclays survived the worst of the financial crisis without direct government support. To insist they divest their investment banking arms would be, in my view, unjust.

I would like to see the following priorities followed:

• Re-focusing on retail banking - particularly RBS and Lloyds. While I'd be reticent about seeing these companies butchered, both have large businesses in a variety of sectors. For example, Lloyds has Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical while RBS has Direct Line and Churchill. I'm not suggesting a wholesale sell off, but some divestment, in the right circumstances, should help strengthen the balance sheets while potentially increasing shareholder value.

• Application of competition policy - allied to the above, the current enforced sales of surplus branches should, hopefully, encourage new entrants to the banking sector. The arrival of Virgin and Tesco should be viewed as a positive step towards bringing a new approach to the high street banking.

• Facilitating and easing access to the sector - competition should not be feared by the state owned banks. It should encourage them to be more effective and be more innovative in developing customer service.
  

• Strengthening balance sheets - this is surely just prudent following recent experience.
  

• Promote responsible lending - although this may sound at odds with improving balance sheets, and today's definition of "responsible" differs from that prior to the recession., government should be seeking ways to ensure the banks allow business and individuals access to credit during the recovery. This will be all the more important when public sector cuts take effect.

Of course, none of these ideas are startlingly original and many of the above points are contained in the coalition agreement. We are lucky to have a Business Secretary who has studied the area closely who will have his own approach.

I look forward to seeing what proposals the coalition does bring forward. Recent events have created an opportunity to radically change banking and financial services (and it's regulation, but that's another story) - the government should look to do what it can to aid the process.

Andrew

Reading Update

Regular readers will have noticed a lack of book reviews in the past couple of months. This is because I'm going through one of my periodic reading droughts.

The last book I read was Ian Rankin's Doors Open, which I fear I never reviewed here. I finished it at the tail end of April., just before I moved house. Unfortunately, moving house and the establishment of a new routine has squeezed my reading. Although I made a start to Vince Cable's The Storm, I never made much progress and fell out of the habit of making time each day to read it.

I'm writing this on Sunday night and hope that by the time of publication on Tuesday I shall have made some movement towards re-establishing a reading regime. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a brief review of Doors Open.

Unfortunately the way my mind works, specific details of books and films are quickly lost and I'm left with over-riding impressions, so please forgive the lack of detail:

I like Ian Rankin and to a point I like his books. The Rebus novels are ripping yarns and being set in Edinburgh, my former residence, makes them all the more appealing. I was intrigued to read Doors Open, his first "post-Rebus" novel, told largely from the point of view of the perpetrator of the crime rather than the investigator.

Mike Mackenzie, a multi-millionaire with time on his hands and an appreciation for art - and the value of art - finds himself involved in a plot to stage a heist of several works from the warehouse of the National Galleries of Scotland. His fellow plotters include a Professor from the College of Art, his private banker and a local criminal big wig but can they all be trusted?

The story was quite thin and a bit contrived and the characters were under-developed. That said, it was well enough told and had a bit of a twist at the end. Ultimately, the best thing about it was the setting and being able to picture the various locations really well - it brought it alive in away which an anonymous setting wouldn't have. That said, I still want to read more of Rankin, particularly The Complaints... and his Twitter feed!

Andrew