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Andreas Whittam Smith: Kelly's report cannot be the end of the matter

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

What is it about politics that generates corrupt behaviour? Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, is due to stand trial on 16 November to answer allegations of tax fraud and false accounting and then, just 11 days later, to explain the alleged payment of a £370,000 bribe to his British tax accountant, David Mills.

Andreas Whittam Smith: The first rule of any regulation – bankers cannot be trusted

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

"Heads I win, tails I'm bailed out." This is what the banks have learnt from the financial crisis and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, is right to attack this assumption.

Andreas Whittam Smith: How the theatre has taught me about the financial crisis

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

If you want to understand the banking crisis, you should go to the theatre. Two wonderful plays, Enron by the young writer Lucy Prebble and The Power of Yes by the well-established David Hare, tell you all you need to know. Enron opened in Chichester in July and then transferred to the Royal Court in London. This run has been completely sold out but it will start again in the West End in January. The Power of Yes opened at the National Theatre on 29 September.

Andreas Whittam Smith: The fine of art of scapegoating

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

In his book about the handling of mad cow disease by both the Conservative and the Labour Governments, Sir Richard Packer, the former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, wrote: "It was standard New Labour practice to decide on who should be categorised as a villain in any given circumstances (whether fairly or not was irrelevant) and to take steps well beforehand so that depiction in that guise rang true when the time came."

Andreas Whittam Smith: We cannot safely say that the Great Crash has passed

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Seeing that stock markets have just completed their best three months for at least 25 years, one could be forgiven for supposing that the Great Crash of 2007- 09 had finally reached its natural end. But it hasn't. Financial markets are still in self-healing mode, and we shall have to see how far that goes. Some banks have repaid rescue funds obtained from governments, but many have yet to do so. And governments for their part are making slow progress in devising better regulation. Only when all this is done will the episode be truly over.

Andreas Whittam Smith: A simple way to greater efficiency

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

If you look at the underlying reality of public services and keep away from the political debate, some aspects of the overspending problem become clearer. It is best to start with the notion that many of the services that government and local authorities offer are not, as an activity, intrinsically different from the provision by the private sector of, say, financial facilities or internet connections. Seen in this context, inefficiency – more truly waste – becomes easier to identity.

Andreas Whittam Smith: The banking story may yet have a happy ending

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Chapter one: The banks over-trade. This ceases only when the property they have taken as security begins to lose value. They hurtle towards insolvency. Governments around the world step in to rescue them; only Lehman Brothers goes over the edge.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Cameron is as obsessed with winning headlines as Blair

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Rule number one in political marketing is "think in headlines". David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, gave a textbook example earlier this week when he said that a Tory Government would cut ministers' pay, reduce the number of MPs and remove some further Parliamentary perks. He didn't say anything meaningful about the more pressing subject of controlling public spending but he obtained the kind of coverage he was seeking. The Daily Mail called Mr. Cameron "the 10% Axeman".

Andreas Whittam Smith: In no other business would Trevor Phillips survive

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The auditors refuse to sign off the accounts of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Treasury declines to approve certain financial transactions. And the chief executive and four non-executive Commissioners leave the board in quick succession. In these disturbing circumstances, the chair, Trevor Phillips, comes up for re-appointment and what happens? Harriet Harman, the Equalities minister, gives him a second term!

Andreas Whittam Smith: Seven ways we could reform our broken political system

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

What is to be done? That question is being asked with increasing urgency about the British political system. Can we go on any longer with our dysfunctional, discredited, dishonourable arrangements? Or, to put the challenge in more practical terms, how can we use the next few months to bring about such a profound change at the forthcoming general election that there can be a fresh start? The scandalous exploitation by Members of Parliament of the expenses system, while it is far from the most serious deficiency of our system of government, has had the perverse benefit of making people very angry.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Forget regulation – the banks are back to business as usual

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It was supposed to be "never glad confident morning again" for capitalism. After the popping of speculative bubbles during the Great Crash of 2008, surely we weren't going to carry on as if nothing had happened? Well, I am afraid to say, ahem, yes, that it sort of looks like that.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Lying has become a way of life for our politicians

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

On Wednesday, David Cameron, the leader of the Opposition, repeated his charge that a "thread of dishonesty" runs through Mr Brown's leadership. Yet dishonesty has always been part of the warp and weft of politics. More than 2,000 years ago, Plato observed that it will be for the rulers of the city "to use falsehood in dealing with the citizenry or enemy for the good of the state". "No one else must do so", he added.

Andreas Whittam Smith: I often wonder why swearing on TV should bother us

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The publication of updated guidelines by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has coincided with the release of a new box set of Friends. The result is that the DVDs of the American TV series have now been given a slightly more restrictive rating, 12 instead of PG (Parental Guidance).

Andreas Whittam Smith: It is not only Brown who is losing all authority

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

On Wednesday evening at the Mansion House, Alastair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, preached on the theme of the improvement required in the behaviour of Britain's bankers. This was a drunkard giving a sermon on temperance. For earlier that day one of his junior ministers, Kitty Ussher, had resigned over allegations that she had avoided paying capital gains tax.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Cabinet reshuffles are no help to good government

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The constant reshuffling of ministers is one reason why the Government is ineffective and prone to error. Political insiders view this process as just normal politics. John Major, for instance, carried out five reshuffles during his seven years as prime minister. Tony Blair went even faster than this. Gordon Brown is preparing his second in the two years.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Why I mourn the loss of these building societies

Thu, 28 May 2009 23:00:01 GMT

I regret that another batch of old building society names, Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, will shortly vanish from high streets. They will be replaced by the red and white flame logo of their new owner, the giant Spanish banking group, Santander.

Andreas Whittam Smith: A reality check bursts the bubble of optimism

Thu, 21 May 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Very early in the day, financial markets are playing a role in the general election due to take place within a year. They have sent a warning. If the winning party fails to reduce the level of government debt more sharply than is currently planned, then the cost of borrowing would rise. That means that either taxes would have to go up or government spending would have to be cut to pay the higher-interest bills.

Andreas Whittam Smith: We need to tear up the rules of our Afghan engagement

Thu, 14 May 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have once more shown us armies fighting new wars with the methods of the old. When I was a soldier doing National Service in the 1950s, I joined an army identical to the one that had fought the Second World War 10 years previously. In new circumstances, however, the old force structure does badly. Hence the British jibe that we lose every battle except the last. Victory is achieved when a new way of fighting has been adopted.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Score: 1-1 in the war on terror

Sun, 10 May 2009 23:00:01 GMT

I have scanned international news with a changed mindset since reading Philip Bobbitt's book on 21st-century wars, Terror And Consent. Mr Bobbitt has been a senior adviser at the White House, the Senate and the State Department in both Democratic and Republican administrations. The first merit of his approach is that it persuades one to consider whether seemingly disparate stories should be linked together.

Andreas Whittam Smith: They didn't make history, but that's no bad thing

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:00:01 GMT

When Gordon Brown came to the podium at 4pm yesterday to summarise the results of the G20 meeting, politics came first. For he began with a list of agreements that, although fine in themselves, will not accelerate economic recovery, will not create a single new job.

Andreas Whittam Smith: At last, an escape route for the banks. But will they take it?

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:01 GMT

I am not looking for green shoots. The image that the phrase conjures up isn't appropriate. This isn't springtime in an economy that has undergone a hard winter. My picture is rather that a hurricane has been passing overhead. Immense damage has been done to the economy by the seizing up of the banking system. I look anxiously to the sky to see whether the storm is moving away or not. And what I have seen this week is a new plan for repairing the American banking system.

Andreas Whittam Smith: The revolution starts here – by text

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:01 GMT

How can we clean up our discredited national politics and make the system fit for purpose? The only method that I can see would be to harness the power of the internet to elect a substantial bloc of independent members to Parliament at the next general election. They would have to have a reforming mandate. Because this has never happened before, it will be thought implausible. But has faith in Parliament and government ever been so low?

Andreas Whittam Smith: The PM has more urgent tasks than bank regulation

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Displacement activity is the diagnosis I make of the great energy that the Prime Minister, Mr Brown, is putting into getting international agreement for the reform of bank regulation. It must make Mr Brown feel that he is doing something useful, although rewriting these rules will not save one job, will not revive a single enterprise, will not boost economic activity.

Andreas Whittam Smith: Darling should have known about Goodwin's pension

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Politicians rival bankers for ineptitude. In the matter of Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland who has walked away from the largest corporate loss in British history with a pension for life of £650,000-a-year at the age of 50, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling yesterday had this to say: "It was only very recently that we became aware that the decision of the previous board of RBS to allow Sir Fred to take early retirement had the effect of increasing his pension entitlement." For "recently", read "last week".

Andreas Whittam Smith: The financial storm will now subside. We've hit rock bottom

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:01 GMT

For the first time in nearly two years, I feel a bit more confident about the economic outlook. My bearish phase started in July 2007, when I wrote here of a storm blowing our way. But after listening to two business discussions recently, I suddenly thought: if these conversations are representative of a wider phenomenon, then we have reached an interesting stage.