Posts

Showing posts from April, 2017

Illiberal Britain

Image
"Why have you changed your avatar?" asked a friend of mine. Why indeed. Ever since I joined Twitter in 2010, my avatar has always been a picture of me, and my Twitter name has always been my own name. I've never wanted - or needed - to be anonymous. So why now? The image on my avatar is the Anarchist Cat. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it: The  black cat , also called the "wild cat" or "sabot-cat", usually with an arched back and with claws and teeth bared, is closely associated with anarchism, especially with anarcho-syndicalism. It was designed by  Ralph Chaplin , who was a prominent figure in the  Industrial Workers of the World  (IWW). As its aggressive stance suggests, the cat is meant to suggest such ideas as  wildcat strike actions ,  sabotage , and radical unionism. A while ago, I added triple parentheses around my name in solidarity with the online Jewish community. Anti-Semitic elements on social media use triple parent

The Libor witch hunt

Image
Since I wrote my post about the Bank of England's alleged manipulation of Libor before and during the financial crisis, something of a witch hunt seems to have developed. Certain people with axes to grind have jumped on the bandwagon set in motion by the BBC's Andy Verity and are aggressively promoting their view that the Bank of England's behaviour was fraudulent. Their argument is that the Bank of England has no business attempting to influence market rates, that those at the Bank who did this should be brought to justice just as traders who rigged Libor  have been, and that businesses, households and public sector bodies that lost money when the Bank of England "talked down" Libor should be compensated. This is arrant nonsense. Influencing market rates is what central banks do . It is called monetary policy, and it is the means by which they control inflation. If central banks could not legally influence market rates, monetary policy as we know it would

Libor and the Bank

Image
Nearly five years ago, the former CEO of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, defended himself against accusations that on his watch, Barclays had deliberately falsified Libor submissions. To no avail: after widespread adverse press coverage, Diamond resigned. Was this at the instigation of the Governor of the Bank of England and the head of the FSA? We will probably never know. But events yesterday make not only Diamond's resignation, but also the prosecution and jailing of traders and Libor submitters from Barclays and other banks, look distinctly odd. The BBC's Andy Verity has revealed the existence of a recording which appears to indicate that the Bank of England and the Treasury pressured banks to "lowball" their Libor submissions during the financial crisis. According to Verity, the conversation, between a junior Libor submitter (who was subsequently jailed) and his manager, ran like this: In the recording, a senior Barclays manager, Mark Dearlove, instructs Libor

A dangerous Eden

Image
I have been going to the gym. Seriously. For about a couple of months now. I'm doing weight training for the first time in my life, and cardio exercises, including - wonder of wonders - short bursts of running. I'm even paying for a personal trainer. It's a shocking extravagance, but I'm likely to find any excuse under the sun not to do my workouts unless I have someone telling me what to do and shouting at me if I don't do it. As one of my school reports said, "Frances does not enjoy physical exertion". Truer words were never spoken. Sporty, I am not. So why am I doing this? It is all because of my family. Specifically, my father. He has serious heart problems, vascular deterioration in his brain and Type II diabetes. And I am a lot like him.  Ok, so he is 83. But he was a lot more active in his 50s than I have become. Since I reduced my singing teaching and took up writing, I have become largely sedentary. Even gardening has gone, killed by a