We’re just not sure. You decide.
Senior Tory and Treasury Select Committee member Michael Fallon had this to say at a City dinner last night:
“Dr Cable spoke of responsible capitalism. Well he slips his electronic tag occasionally. There is another side to responsible capitalism and that is responsible government. I believe there are limits to government.”
So, Cable is off message when he talks about responsible capitalism, argues Mr Fallon. He’d rather have irresponsible, socially selfish, rate-manipulating, sovereign-bankrupting, SME scamming financial capitalism.
And, the ‘other side’ of responsible capitalism is responsible government he contends. Except that as we don’t have accountable, responsible capitalism, why should he get limited government deregulating crooks?
When Michael Fallon ‘grilled’ Bob Diamond at the TSC enquiry on Libor two months back, he omitted to tell the enquiry that his son was employed by Diamond. He also omitted to point out that for many years, he was himself employed by one of the largest Libor dealers on the planet.
So we must ask ourselves, is Fallon an irresponsible, shifty capitalist who wants deregulated financial services entirely in his own rarely declared interests? It’s hard to tell.
Why is it that so many top-brass necks get away with promoting bilge? How can Boris Johnson tell us we should stop bashing bankers…and keep a straight face? How can George Osborne effectively say that “we are all in this together”, and that large banks do not need reform? Why do so many 1922ers loathe Cable, when he was consistently right about their hero Murdoch? How can Bojo and Michael Gove continue to heap praise on Murdoch as “a guiding light among media owners” when he lied his fat Digger head off to the Leveson enquiry and allowed a culture of illegal privacy invasion to take hold inside Newscorp? How can Jeremy Hunt insist to a packed Commons that he “did nothing wrong” during the BSkyB takeover process?
It’s simply, really. Because the Opposition couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding, the electorate is either asleep or distracted, far too many decent Tory supporters are incredibly naive, the media are lazy and spineless, and the overall UK culture has now descended so deep into the excrement, disingenuous bollocks seems normal acceptable, and believable.
By the time Camerlot has gone, we will be England. Shortly after that, we will be Greece. Ten years later, Mexico. Five years after that, Zimbabawe. Welcome to the new Camerworld of Adventures ride, “To Hell in a Bucket”.
The Slog 