FRIDAY the 13th might traditionally be the unluckiest date, but in Edinburgh from now on Monday the 13th will surely be staking a claim.
Monday, October 13, 2008 will go down in the city's history as the day two of its greatest institutions died, with the effective nationalisation of Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Three centuries of independent banking went i
n a flurry of weekend activity between treasury officials, politicians and bankers as they desperately tried to thrash out a settlement before the start of trading yesterday morning.
And with them went some of the biggest figures in Scottish business, victims of vaulting ambition at a time when caution was called for. And when Prime Minister Gordon offered the leaders of RBS and HBoS a dagger, they had no option but to accept and finish themselves off. Scottish business and indeed Scottish politics will never be the same.
The silver lining in these very dark clouds is for the Labour Party, which now has a much-derided Prime Minister and Chancellor seen as men who have acted prudently and decisively to prevent an even greater disaster than that which unfolded last week. Had the rescue package not been agreed it seems certain that the RBS would have collapsed and the effect that would have had on Edinburgh does not bear thinking about.
The scale of the operation is mind-boggling and it poses some very uncomfortable questions for the SNP in that the injection of more than £30 billion into two Scottish institutions would have been well beyond an independent Scottish government. All talk of "Northern arcs of prosperity", "Celtic tigers", "Icelandic lions" or whatever other exciting descriptions there have been for anything that doesn't involve England is firmly off.
Of course that is not to say that First Minister Alex Salmond does not have a vital role in making sure that Scotland gets its fair share in the allocation of emergency resources – the business case for the London Olympics will make interesting reading – but with that amount of cash being pumped into two companies based in Edinburgh any charge that Westminster is keeping Scotland back will be hard to stick.
The appointment of the chipper East Renfrewshire MP Jim Murphy as Scotland Secretary – unencumbered by the role of Defence Secretary as was his predecessor Des Browne – will mean that Mr Salmond will get less of a free run as he tries to carve out his niche as the only man who can stand up for Scotland. Mr Browne's first priority was Afghanistan and Iraq but that allowed a void to open up between London and Holyrood which Mr Salmond was quick to fill. With Iain Gray settling in as Holyrood leader, Labour will be better placed to take on Mr Salmond in ways that have proved impossible in the past 16 months.
But, in all of this, who is speaking up for Edinburgh? The city badly needs a voice and it needs it fast. Jenny Dawe, where are you?
The full article contains 518 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
