So let me get this right. Owing to circumstances entirely outside my control, I am unable to obtain credit of any kind. I live from pay cheque to pay cheque, and must use cash for all payments. Now my tax payments are to be used to guarantee the savings of Northern Rock customers following a multi-billion pound run on the bank. And what, precisely, is in this for me?
Dear Prudence
- September 17, 2007 – 9:51 pm
- Posted in airstrip one, current affairs
7 Comments
Owing to circumstances largely within my control, I can’t get credit either (although I do now have a cheque guarantee card, so perhaps things are improving, the fools) and furthermore I used to work for the Bradford & Bingley prior to its conversion to a bank in 1999. As the then second largest mutual after the Nationwide, the Bradford & Bingley was favoured by the carpetbaggers who had already won a payout from the Halifax in 1997. An account holder in Northern Ireland secured the support of the 100 fellow members he needed to prompt a ballot and the vote went against the Society at something like 70% in favour of conversion.
When I joined in 1997, the Doncaster branch was opening a thousand new accounts a day, each of which required £1000 minimum deposit but crucially and unlike the Nationwide, with no requirement to sign a waiver agreeing that any potential payout must go to charity. When the voting forms went out the board campaigned to remain as a mutual. We were encouraged to stress to members the two major benefits of having no shareholders: higher savings rates and lower mortgage rates.
Looking back ten years ago, long before the scales fell from my eyes, it seems so obvious that we were bound to fail, that the prospect of a windfall of several hundred pounds would prove to be too big an obstacle but the size of the defeat was devastating. Almost everyone we spoke to agreed with us at the time but when the ballot envelopes landed seven out of ten of the people we spoke to voted against us. We knew there would be those who couldn’t care less because we dealt with them everyday, the grasping cadavers who had crawled their way to the top of a mountainous pile of money and a large house and wouldn’t blink at cutting loose those below them for the prospect of a little bit more, the ones who would stand and argue that their interest dividends were a few pence short. The day after the result was announced, most people wouldn’t look us in the eye but of those who were genuinely upset, they were invariably those with savings of only a few hundred pounds who had still voted in favour of remaining with a building society. I’m not claiming to be George Bailey in the Building & Loan, but there’s something noble about a society which lends the money it receives from savers to borrowers without having to consider paying shareholders and without levying extortionate charges for every ancillary service. Building Societies are a good thing and good things invariably get fucked over.
All of which typically pointless meandering leads me to the Northern Rock, another former Building Society which thought it could go it alone with the big boys and will pay the ultimate price when a Barclays or a Nat West comes along and tends a bid. I’m particularly sorry for the staff because many of them will pay with their jobs for a mistake that wasn’t theirs and they couldn’t understand even if someone sat down with them and tried to explain the nebulous world of international money markets with a pack of Crayola and some Fuzzy Felt.
Welcome back!
I am no defender of ‘Prudence’ but your money is exceedingly unlikely to be used in this particular instance. However, if you would like to see your money in full use, try popping in to the nearest pub to your local DHSS office at lunchtime and you can watch it disappearing down the throats of sundry wastrels. Such fun!
As for the tear-inducing cods-wallop written by the ‘Mistaken Ape’ above, I remember his warm-hearted, friendly Building Scoieties of yester-year when you had to queue for months and say ‘Yes, sir, no, sir, thank you, sir’ to various pox-doctors’ clerks to even be considered for a mortgage. My first mortgage only appeared because my accountant was friendly with a local Branch manager.
The government already guarantee pretty much all of the first £33 grand anyway. So they’ve really offering anything much more than they already did. Except perhaps for the kind of nutcases who leave more than £33000 lying around in a *Bank*.
Still, something’s got to give when you start lending money to dishonest spivs like Duff, eh?
I meant “So they’re not really offering” in the second sentence, by the way.
I do so enjoy your delightful badinage, Duff.
Thank you, Grilla (oops, that’s an error).
You’re welcome, pickle.
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