Iain Sinclair on “London: City Of Disappearances” pt1
Inteview in which the author and psychogeographer strolls though Abney Park cemetary in Stoke Newington. …
Duration : 0:7:3
Ashley Slater
Ashley sang compositions from his two solo albums – “Big Lounge” and “Cellophane”. And yet some from Freak Power stuff. He`s a true performer and has amazing voice.
Duration : 0:3:0
The holes in Goldman’s Greek defence
Goldman Sachs’ statement on its financial deals with Greece, which made the debt of this financially stretched nation seem smaller than it actually was, will not – I think – silence the many critics of the world’s most successful investment bank.
In a series of deals, Goldman did two things for Greece.
During December 2000 and January 2001, it “swapped” some of Greece’s Yen and Dollar debts into euros, using a “historical implied foreign exchange” rate rather than the market rate. In other words, it used invented exchange rates, rather than market rates, whose effect was to make it seem that Greece’s liabilities in its own currency were less than was actually the case.
Second, Goldman took on responsibility for paying the coupon – or fixed rate of interest – on a newly issued Greek bond, and received “cash flows based on variable interest rates”. Now, this is a rather opaque statement, but it implies that Greece sacrificed the certainty and comfort of fixed rate interest payments for variable ones.
So what was the effect of all of this?
Well Goldman say the deals “reduced Greece’s foreign denominated debt in euro terms by €2.367bn and – in turn – decreased Greece’s debt as a percentage of GDP by just 1.6 per cent, from 105.3 per cent to 103.7 per cent”.
Okay, so far, so factual.
What are Goldman’s justifications for entering into transactions whose primary purpose was to make it look as though Greece’s indebtedness was smaller than it actually was?
Well, there seem to be three.
First, it suggests that everyone was at it. Goldman says “Greece entered into a series of hedging agreements designed to transform foreign debt into euro, a common practice by many European member states with foreign debt outstanding”.
Why single out Goldman and Greece, if loads of other banks and EU countries were playing the same game, or a similar one?
Second, Goldman says that “the Greek government has stated (and we agree) that these transactions were consistent with the Eurostat principles governing their use and application at the time”. Or to put it another way, they did not breach the European Union’s accounting rules of the time.
And third, the deals “had a minimal effect on the country’s overall fiscal situation”. As Goldman points out, in 2001 Greece’s debt to GDP ratio was 103.7 per cent of GDP with a value of $131bn. In 2008, Greece’s national debt was 99 per cent of GDP with a value of $357bn.
In that context, deals that reduced the appearance of Greece’s debt by €2.367bn – or $3.2bn at current exchange rates (as opposed to “historical implied” ones) – seems a drop in the ocean, neither here nor there.
However, there does seem to me to be a gap in Goldman’s explanations and justifications – which is that they do not address the question of whether the deals were the right thing for a firm of its size and reputation to be doing.
Yesterday, one of Goldman’s managing directors, Gerald Corrigan – the former president of the New York Fed – told British MPs that “with the benefit of hindsight . . . the standards of transparency could have been and probably should have been higher”, in respect of such transactions.
But that seems to shift the blame to regulators who created a loophole; it’s not an examination of Goldman’s corporate conscience.
And here, I think, is what will concern those politicians and regulators who are currently wrestling not only with the narrow question of how to ensure that European countries borrow only what’s prudent, but are also contemplating a redesign of the financial system to prevent a repetition of the kind of banking crisis we saw in the autumn of 2008.
Goldman’s Greek defence carries the following momentous implication (albeit one that many will say is blindingly obvious): Goldman is in effect saying that banks will always go for the seemingly profitable deal, unless they are formally prohibited from doing so; and that it’s naive to expect them to do the “right thing”, in a nebulous ethical sense, unless they are obliged to do that right thing.
Which may reinforce the case of those – like the US president – who argue that the only safe bank is one that is subject to the tightest possible constraints on what it can do and has been cut down to a safe size.
But don’t expect Goldman to say three cheers for that.
Drink in the Cittie of Yorke
Your author hasn’t mentioned a Sam Smiths pub for some time, so let’s end the drought with a look at the Cittie of Yorke, on High Holborn, a Grade II listed inn on a site that dates back to 1430.
The current pub was largely rebuilt in the 1920s but it is still a warren of different rooms and alcove and the cellar bar is particularly atmospheric, though the high ceilinged main bar, known as the Henekey’s long bar, is well worth a look.
The pub is listed in CAMRA’s national inventory of historic pub interiors and features include a late-Georgian or Regency era metal stove and Victorian cubicles, which we are told were were originally used by lawyers in consultation with clients (and probably still are from time to time).
For more on the Cittie of York, see here.
^Picture by Matthew Black^
Mosque in the Sun
I remember the Regent’s Park Mosque being built in the seventies, the first in London. Fascinatingly, it was almost eighty years in the arriving. From wht it feels like, the sun has been away that long, too.
(isn’t it odd how the days when blogger screws up the posting coincide with those I am too busy to check up?)
The truth about Lord Ashcroft’s taxes
At last. The truth is out. The man who’s bankrolled the Tories for much of the past decade and has consistently refused to answer questions about his tax status has finally come clean. Michael Ashcroft is a “non-dom” – in other words he’s not been paying British taxes on his non-UK earnings throughout the time he’s been central to the Conservatives campaigning.
Why, some will ask, does this matter? The answer is that Ashcroft is one of the biggest ever donors to a political party. Not only that but he now sits at the centre of the Tory election campaign directing his own, as well as other people’s, money into a carefully targeted effort to win the marginal seats. Furthermore, he often accompanies the shadow foreign secretary William Hague on foreign trips.
Since foreign donations to political parties are banned, the Tories’ opponents and the media have long sought an answer about Ashcroft’s tax status. They’ve been met by Ashcroft’s insistence that he’s entitled to privacy and the party’s baffling repetition of the line that he had assured them that he had fulfilled the assurances that he gave to William Hague when he was made a member of the House of Lords in 2000.
Now we know the reason for this obfuscation. In 2000, Ashcroft promised Hague that he’d take up permanent residence in the UK – as against Belize where his business interests are and where he’s always said his heart is. Everyone assumed that this meant becoming a full UK taxpayer. Ashcroft now says that after “dialogue with the government” he was told officially that this could be interpreted as meaning becoming a “long term resident”, not a full UK taxpayer. The Conservatives refuse to say whether they knew about this clarification or not.
Questions still remain about Lord Ashcroft’s donations to the Conservatives which are being examined by the Electoral Commission. Since foreign donations are illegal, one key judgement will be whether the company he uses to channels funds to the Tories is seen as a legitimate UK trading company.
Questions also still remain about his wider role. Conservative officials insist that Ashcroft has “no role and no influence” in shaping Conservative policy despite his presence at William Hague’s side when policy is clearly being formed.
For years when senior Tories were asked about Michael Ashcroft in private they have shrugged their shoulders and said “you know what he’s like”. What they mean is he’s stubborn, fiercely protective of his privacy and unwilling to bend to the demands of those he sees as his enemies.
David Cameron’s response to the questions about him has been to reduce Tory financial dependence on him; to promote a change in the law to bar non-doms from sitting in Parliament and, I assume, to tell him he’d be better outing himself before Freedom of Information or journalistic enquiry did it for him. Lord Ashcroft hints this morning that he’s about to change his tax status so that he can stay in the Lords.
Labour MPs have long obsessed about the man they accuse of trying to buy an election in a country in which he does not even bother to be fully resident for tax purposes. Their attack is blunted somewhat by the fact that Gordon Brown made Sraj Paul – a Labour donor and non-dom – a peer and a member of the Privy Council.
An investigation by The Independent this weekend appears to give ammunition to both sides in this argument. It claimed that Ashcroft’s Tory HQ operation had channelled large sums into fighting campaigns in marginal seats – £6m over two years. However, it also showed that £5million of that had been raised locally.
When it comes to Ashcroft – you pays yer money, or rather he does (and lots of it) and you make your choice.
Why Lord Ashcroft’s case is different
It is unpatriotic – the home secretary claimed – for the Tories to take so much money from a man who chooses not to be a full British taxpayer.
If so, all three of the UK’s major parties are unpatriotic because they have all taken major sums from so-called “non-doms”.
It is wrong, many say, and, indeed, it will soon be illegal to sit in Parliament making laws in Britain whilst avoiding paying taxes here.
If so, Lord Ashcroft is not the only one doing so. Lord Paul – a Labour donor – is also a “non-dom” and Gordon Brown promoted him to the Privy Council.
So, what then makes the man who thinks he may be the biggest political donor in British political history different?
In part it is because Ashcroft is a four-letter word to opponents who not only resent but fear both his money and also his role at Tory HQ where he’s masterminding a hugely costly and ruthlessly effective campaign to target voters in the seats that could clinch the next election.
In part it is because for 10 years he and successive Tory leaders have dodged questions about his tax status.
In part it is because the only reason he’s revealed it now is because the secret assurances which secured him a peerage after it was at first turned down were about to be revealed after a Freedom of Information request.
The questions about Lord Ashcroft will continue. They will only impact on the election though if it’s David Cameron and not him who feels uncomfortable.
Hunt saboteur ‘killed man with rotor’
Pilot Bryan Griffiths accused of manslaughter at opening of trial
A hunt supporter trying to stop a pilot from taking off in a gyrocopter had his head sliced open by the machine’s tail rotor blade, a court heard today.
Trevor Morse, 48, was flung aside by the force of the blow, which ripped out part of his brain, killing him instantly, a jury at Birmingham crown court was told.
At the opening of a manslaughter trial, Gareth Evans QC, prosecuting, said the tragedy had been the fault of the light aircraft’s pilot, Bryan Griffiths, 55. Evans told the court Griffiths had deliberately driven the gyrocopter at Morse with its tail rotor spinning at over 200mph.
“Doing this was reckless in the extreme because the manoeuvre carried with it a very, very real risk that Mr Morse would come into contact with the revolving, unguarded rear propeller blades,” he said. “The prosecution say that this man, the defendant, is criminally liable for this death through his own gross negligence.”
The court heard Griffiths, of Bedworth, Warwickshire, had landed to refuel at Long Marston airfield, near Stratford-on-Avon, while using his flimsy machine to monitor a meeting of the Warwickshire hunt in March last year during the pack’s last outing of the season.
Evans said Griffiths was not a known anti-hunt activist but had previously followed the riders from the air, with a passenger filming them.
Morse was acting on the day as a “road monitor”, to avoid problems with the hunt and traffic, when he saw the gyrocopter land at the small airstrip. He first drove his Land Rover on to the runway and then got out and stood in front of the aircraft as Griffiths prepared to take off.
Evans took the jury through an edited video of the tragedy, filmed by a local man, Peter Bunce, who had brought fuel to the airfield for the gyrocopter, which belonged to Griffiths. The film made it clear that Griffiths had been set on leaving, and Morse was equally determined to prevent him doing so, when the situation went out of control.
The court heard a voice on the film’s soundtrack say: “You are obstructing him taking off. You have no right to do that. You have no right to do that.” Morse then appeared to ask a woman to help his blockade, the gyrocopter’s engine revved, and there was a bang. The film then cut to a point where Morse was shown lying lifeless on the ground.
“Oh dear, the twat didn’t stand clear of it,” said a voice on the soundtrack before the film ended.
Evans told the jury there was no dispute about Morse’s determination to keep the gyrocopter on the ground. He said: “There is no doubt about it: his intention was stopping that gyrocopter from taking off. At one stage, he moved the Land Rover closer to the gyrocopter to stop it getting away in an attempt to block its getaway. He was not standing there for the good of his health. He made it plain that he was obstructing that gyrocopter’s takeoff, and when asked to get out of the way, he refused to do so.”
But he accused Griffiths of having reacted without any regard for the danger of the situation, saying that he had failed to handle the aircraft gently during the confrontation. Describing the way the gyrocopter approached Morse in the moments before the tragedy, he said: “This was not a general nudging movement. It was carried out, we say, at speed. This was no inching movement.”
The court heard Morse had had no chance of avoiding the rotors as the aircraft closed in on him. Evans said: “The blade of the rear propeller cleaved Mr Morse’s head from top to bottom. Unfortunately, it also dramatically removed a portion of his brain and threw it away from him. Mercifully, death was instantaneous.”
Morse, from Alderminster, Warwickshire, was a long-standing follower of the hounds, and an ornithologist. He reared birds and helped to look after an eagle owl the hunt bought after the 2004 Hunting Act. He was known for never missing an event.
The Warwickshire hunt had complained 10 days earlier to the Civil Aviation Authority about a gyrocopter following their meets, and an investigation was launched just before Morse’s death.
The hearing continues.
FTSE 100 surges above 5,400 mark to hit six-week high
An approach for Arriva from KKR and Comfort DelGro, a takeover of Connaught by
privately-owned Enterprise and a Nestlé bid for L’Oréal. Those
were just some of the bid tales that traders knocked around as the blue-chip
index climbed above the 5400 mark.
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Debt markets suffer a crisis of confidence
Ten-year UK government bonds fell and yields rose 4 basis points to 4.068pc
during Monday’s session as negative sentiment took hold of the London gilt
market.
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