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Scottish perceptions of HBOS takeover at odds with those of UK government

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Published Date: 03 November 2008
The UK Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, fails to appreciate that the "public interest" in Scotland in respect of the Lloyds takeover of HBOS is very different from the London-centric perception of public interest, in so far as it impacts on customers and businesses both large and small (Leader, 1 November).
The UK government has not only ignored the concerns of the Office of Fair Trading and the majority view in the Scottish Parliament, but it now transpires that Gordon Brown took no action when the Financial Services Authority expressed concerns abou
t HBOS liquidity in 2004.

There is huge anger and dismay among thousands of bank customers, employees, pensioners and shareholders in Scotland and what is the point of the Union if, in exchange for using our taxes to help HBOS, Scottish UK Cabinet ministers will not insist on protecting key HQ decision making jobs in Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians.

ANDREW ROSIE
MacDowall Road
Edinburgh

You have been vigorous in leading the fight to keep HBOS independent but your report (31 October) regarding the proposed new board is a non event is it not? Surely, it is only right that the present board and executive management of HBOS should be dispensed with? After all, they are responsible for the destruction of a 300 year old bank in five years. It is not just Eric Daniels of LloydsTSB who is indifferent to the past is it?

Should HBOS stay independent, who would run it? I don't think that world banking would have much faith in our much-praised Scottish financial acumen, and the markets would have no confidence in the present incumbents. The idea of selling off profitable operations and retreating to core banking is ludicrous. The core bank is bust and the fact that no insider is leaking information to the contrary tells its own story.

Leave it to the shareholders.

IAN LEWIS
Mayfield Terrace
Edinburgh

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, ignoring the warnings of the Office of Fair Trading and the vote of the Scottish Parliament, would appear to be hell-bent on rushing through the Lloyds TSB takeover of HBOS. What a surprise.

How pleased they must be at the prospect of severely weakening the strong Scottish financial sector and permanently toppling one of the main historical icons of Scottish nationhood. The resultant economic misery will be a small price for the UK Government to pay for this chance to put a drag on the Scottish independence bandwagon.

Their hope must be that they can spin this sorry episode to the more gullible voters as an instance of London helping out impoverished Scotland and thus postpone for another year or two our inevitable development into maturity and adult membership of the circle of nations.

MARY McCABE
Circus Drive
Glasgow

It is very clear from Peter Mandelson's comments that he has every intention in pushing through the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS despite the reservations raised by the Office of Fair Trading. In fact, to call it a merger is a little misleading as Lloyds seem to have all the control and management in place to ensure that the HBOS identity will be lost in years to come.

Could there be a devious political master-plan at work as part of a hidden agenda driving the takeover to ensure the demise of HBOS and further weaken the support for independence in Scotland? Time will tell.

DENNIS GRATTAN
Mugiemoss Road
Aberdeen



The full article contains 585 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 02 November 2008 8:02 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

,

03/11/2008 00:18:01
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
2

Dr. James Wilkie,

Vienna 03/11/2008 02:38:18
I agree with the above comments #1 and #2. The whole conduct of this affair suggests that there is an overriding political motive behind the obscene haste to submerge the Bank of Scotland in LloydsTSB - which is a different issue from the recapitalisation of the bank. Mr. Daniels, to judge from his recent letter to the editor, evidently regards the merger as already a fait accompli, for which assumption he no doubt has his reasons. To my eyes, this is just a repetition of the asset-stripping of Scotland's manufacturing industry that took place under the Thatcher government, or the manipulation of the administrative border at Lamberton to project Scotland's marine border far to the north of the constitutional border at the mouth of the River Tweed.

Ever since the national movement gained sufficient strength to constitute a threat there has been a consistent pattern of asset-stripping Scotland that goes well beyond purely commercial considerations. From fishing to steelmaking the devastation has continued, much of it economically unnecessary. A lot of it has an obviously emotive anti-Scottish bias; for example, when the very successful Caledonian Airways was submerged in BOAC (and later BA) they even burned the tartan uniforms of the stewardesses to eliminate the last traces of Scottishness. This London insensitivity to Scotland's national interests is all stoking the fires of a massive Scottish reaction that is obviously building up. It may not reach its peak in Glenrothes, but it is coming for all that.
3

StuartAD,

West Lothian 03/11/2008 06:37:13
I would like to see what other offers are on the table at this moment, not the maybes, not the I think that a European consortium, but a real substansive offer to take over the crippled HBOS, crippled by the people who were at the top of the banking in Scotland. The conspiracy theorists are alive & well everywhere, Caledonian Airways was sold by, yes Caledonian Airways to BOAC, not a Government takeover.
The few people who support that great illusionist, King Alex should really be watching the money trail, watch as our country Scotland, slides as more companies are scared away by the separatists. Watch as the great manifesto promises are forgotten as money becomes tighter for all the great services, not even an inflation rise for the NHS, never mind the Local Governments who have to find money from somewhere. This to make up the deficit it faces over the LIT fiasco.
Selling out to Europe is better than being British, I do not think so.
4

Auld Twa,

Edinburgh 03/11/2008 07:47:04
#4 Stuart A D
We have just had the smallest increase in the Scottish Block Grant since devolution and non-Barnet spending on police pensions and home computers for England.
The Scots are being punished for voting in the SNP and it will continue.
Jim Murphy is going to Iceland before the Glenrothes by election to do "whatever it takes" to get the council's deposits back from the Iceland banks. Exactly what is he going to do ? The UK treasury officials who went to Iceland came back empty handed.
If he pays out the cash from government funds will he also have to pay compensation to the councils who invested in UK funds with more security but lower returns ?
5

Martinh,

03/11/2008 08:34:30
#5. The Scottish block grant is twice that managed by Donald Dewar, were Scots punished for voting in devolution? And if you factor in the ambiguity of the spoiled ballot papers its not clear whether the SNP were elected in the first place, although they clearly would be now.

As for the sorry HBOS state of affairs, the fact is that financial mis-management led to the run on shares, ie because they had over stretched in the lending sector, other banks refused to lend to the HBOS, leading to the current parlous state. Unlike many SNP commentators who cannot ever see anything other than a wicked Westminster plot in anything, the proposed Lloyds-TSB merger if it goes ahead will met with a sigh of relief by millions of investors like myself, who have banked loyally with the BOS and HBOS since the early 1970s, but whose pathetic life savings such as they are, are integrally linked with the viabilty of the bank. Its no use calling foul on Mandelson GB/Darling now, they didn't instigate the reckless financial crisis, which lies with the respective boards of (mis) management.
6

Ewan Oosami,

03/11/2008 09:53:36
Surely it's the shareholders who will have the final say on this take-over. I for one will be voting against it but mine is but a small voice compared with the big institutions and their self interest.
7

The Strategist,

03/11/2008 09:53:51
The London Commissariat don't see Scotland as anything other as a region of the UK and HBOS as a British bank that happens to be headquartered in Scotland.
8

,

03/11/2008 11:33:51
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
9

Martinh,

03/11/2008 12:02:08
#9. Although this is off topic, I cannot accept the logic of your conclusions. If supposed financial restrictions were imposed on Scotland as a direct response by Westminster for narrowly electing (possibly not at all) a SNP Executive turned Government at Holyrood, what would be the point of making all Scots 'suffer' including Labour supporters?

The SNP are now the popular choice at Holyrood, and would if there was an election tomorrow be elected overwhelmingly. If financial restrictions to the Scottish budget were real, then Labour would never have a chance of being re-elected under devolution. Another view of course is that the £30 billion allocated to Holyrood was a fair settlement in the current economic climate. We just can't seem to get away from conspiracy theories. If what you say is true regarding punishment of Scots for voting SNP, then doesn't that help the SNPs case for independence? Is Westminster secretly negotiating with Salmond to hasten the demise of the UK by cutting finance available to the Government here?
10

Amanda Huginkiss,

03/11/2008 14:05:24
8# Scotland, like England, IS a region of the UK, as well as being a country and a kingdom. HBOS is since its merger and before, a British bank. So what is your point?
11

pwd,

Borders 03/11/2008 17:14:04
The search for victimhood by too many Scots brings shame on us. Most of what has gone wrong over the past few decades has been self generated. When we can all face up to that we might start to grow again. A start might be made now by facing the fact that the demise of BCal (wonderful airline apart from its economics), HBOS, etc, etc, was the result of failures by those in charge - not Westminster. Facing painful facts is one of the signs of maturity and adulthood.
12

Amanda Huginkiss,

03/11/2008 18:02:03
13#I thought guys like you like 2 busts!
14# Well said!
13

Dr. James Wilkie,

Vienna 03/11/2008 21:52:47
#11 sm753. I was tempted to ask the editors to delete your comment on account of its gratuitous personal abuse of myself from a position of anonymity, and I will certainly do so if there is any repetition of such uncouth and unwarranted defamation, which you seem to regard as a substitute for reasoned argument. Even after spending more than 30 years working in international affairs, at both foreign ministry and United Nations level, I have never once proclaimed myself to be an expert in anything. However, you raise a point that must be followed up.

I have long since been aware of the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999, You are correct in stating that Scotland's international border starts at the mouth of the River Tweed. Unfortunately, however, the Order takes the marine border from the administrative boundary at Lamberton, 4 km north of Berwick, and not from the constitutional border at the Tweed. I have re-checked the coordinates stated in the Order, and there is no doubt of the error. The Scotland/England border line from the Solway Firth to the mouth of the Tweed was laid down by international treaty before the 1707 union, and has never been altered to this day. At no time has Berwick ever been transferred to England.

That curious mediaeval anomaly of a part of Scotland under English administration has never been corrected, not even long after Berwick has ceased to have any military importance. However, the mouth of the Tweed is the starting point for Scotland's marine border, and not the line laid down in the 1999 Order.

14

Hume,

03/11/2008 22:34:13
Scottish nationhood would become a much less confused aim if it were not seen simply as a means of possibly being richer than the English. The "Arc of Prosperity" nations did not become independent/self determining because they thought they would get rich. Independent Iceland and Norway were poor. Ireland too. Collins did not motivate by promising lower corporation tax rates and more EU grants. A deeper sense of nationhood beyond the SNP's view is needed. This will avoid the ups and downs of national pride with the oil price, or release of Mel Gibson films, and the unsightly prostitution to Trump etc to bring in money, ignoring what local people want.
15

JoeMiddleton,

Edinburgh 04/11/2008 13:14:11
#18

Your contempt for the rights of Scotland is sickening and your post appears to admit that Berwick was still part of Scotland at the time the union was signed (to such an extent that it's status was not even required to be clarified).

In fact it was actually subsequently grabbed in 1746 as part of a bill which also pretended that England now owned Wales!

Q. Who would sell out their own countries interests to another? A. A British unionist.
16

Dr. James Wilkie,

Vienna 04/11/2008 22:03:01
#18. The border between Scotland and England was definitively established by the Treaty of York, and that has remained unaltered to this day. The English annexation of Berwick was an act of military aggression with no constitutional significance, and the subsequent treaty that left an English administration in Berwick for strategic reasons (it was "of" England but not "in" England) did not alter the border line. That remains to this day the River Tweed, as Queen Victoria underlined when she opened the Royal Border Bridge in 1850. The Treaty of Union and both Acts of Union all lay down that the jurisdiction of the Scottish courts is to remain unaltered notwithstanding the Union. That being an entrenched matter, the application of English law to Berwick remains unconstitutional to this day - and the border remains the River Tweed.

 

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