Comments on: CommentIsLinked@LDV… James Graham: Nick Clegg – where have you been?

By: David Allen

David Allen — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:26:33 +0000

Geoffrey Payne is right.

Lord Turner is a City grandee. It is not usual for City grandees to put forward bold, difficult ideas, and risk being criticised for naivety and unworldliness, just because there are shortcomings in the way the City is working. Nevertheless, Lord Turner has decided to take the risk of advocating a bold, difficult idea. He deserves praise and support for putting justice ahead of caution, and for putting the public interest ahead of the bankers’ interest.

We could naturally have expected bankers, financiers, and the political Right to pooh-pooh Lord Turner’s proposals. But why on earth should a Lib Dem leader be joining the critics?

By: KL

KL — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:24:42 +0000

Herbert Brown – yes, it would. Though I doubt it would have been vacuous.

By: Martin Kinsella

Martin Kinsella — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:10:00 +0000

I thought it was a very good article by James.

By: Herbert Brown

Herbert Brown — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:27:41 +0000

“Considering Clegg was calling for the summer recess to be cancelled just a couple of months ago, this does smack somewhat of dropping the ball.”

But of course, that business about cancelling the Summer recess was just another little gimmick designed to grab a bit of attention. Would it really have been better if Clegg had forgone his holiday, and had instead come out with a vacuous soundbite every two or three days?

By: Geoffrey Payne

Geoffrey Payne — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:48:25 +0000

I was disappointed to read the cautious response to Lord Turner’s bold idea of introducing a Tobin tax. Lord Turner himself has admitted that he never had in mind implementing the policy only in the UK, which appeared to be the main argument against introducing it.
We should be the party advocating international cooperation to introduce it. Of course if we do not get that agreement, we cannot do it, but we should certainly try.
The UK in particular has paid a very high price for the market failures of the City and we should take the lead in ensuring it does not happen again.