Danny Alexander doesn't know hid bank bail out from his elbow!
Danny Alexander gave a speech at The Scotland Office this morning regarding independence and I’ve just seen this snippet in the Herald online:
“Outlining what he calls ludicrous myths, he questioned whether Scotland would be able to bail out banks, given the size of the financial sector north of the border.”
Right, Danny Alexander really has no place working in the Treasury department if this is what he thinks because what he’s said here just proves that he doesn’t know his bank bail out from his elbow.
FACTS about the bank bail out.
1) the ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND, that Scottish bank they keep telling us we wouldn’t have been able to bail out if we were an independent country, only operates around 10% of its business IN Scotland. Yes, that’s right, that Scottish bank operates 90% of its business OUTSIDE of Scotland.
2) Scotland had nothing to do with the way in which banks were regulated. This responsibility fell solely on the UK Government.
3) The majority of poor decisions and losses which led to RBS’s financial crisis derived from their London based businesses. Around 80% in fact.
4) RBS’s corporation tax went straight to the UK Government, and as such was not included as a Scottish revenue (funny that, considering it’s a “Scottish bank”)
5) the UK bail out of RBS by taxpayers was £45billion, quite a substantial sum of which Scotland’s share was around 10%. Had we been an independent country, given that only 10% of the bank’s business operates IN Scotland, our share of the bail out would have been roughly the same. However, had we been independent, we would have seen an increase in revenue from the bank’s corporation tax, and employees NI contributions which currently are sent straight to Westminster.
6) The UK didn’t bail out RBS on its own, considering the Federal Reserve in America made £285 BILLION available, it could be argued that our good friends across the water bailed them out.
Why would they do that? Well because that’s how bank bail outs work. Bank’s are jointly bailed out in countries where they have business operations and assets located, in order to protect the economy of those countries. The amount of money which they use to aid the bail out, depends on the level of activity.
That’s why when Barclays Bank (Head Office in Canary Wharf) needed bailed out, it wasn’t only the UK who shoved money at it, but also the US Federal Reserve again, and also Qatar, in what was the single largest bail out package of any British bank.
He also said:
“In short, there is more evidence for the Loch Ness monster than there is for many of the calculations and the claims that have been put forward by the nationalists to support their case for separation.”
Well Danny, I think there’s more evidence to support the Loch Ness Monster than there is to support you having a job come March 2016. Tick Tock Danny.
