Press release from the party:
GOVERNMENT HAS NATIONALISED NORTHERN ROCK BUT PRIVATISED THE PROFITS – CABLE
Commenting on Alistair Darling’s statement to Parliament today on the Northern Rock crisis, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable said:
“It is particularly ironic that the Prime Minister felt the need to fly to a communist country to come up with a supposedly private sector solution for Northern Rock.
“The reality is the Government has ingeniously come up with a private sector sale that doesn’t involve any private sector money.
“In order to save face Brown has decided that losses of Northern Rock should be nationalised, but that profits should be privatised.
“Taxpayers now face years of underwriting Northern Rock, giving the opportunity for a private bidder to make an absolute killing – this is of course assuming that the EU decides that the Government position of guarantor is even legal.
“The Tories have been playing political games with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money ever since the Northern Rock debacle began, and now the Government has seen fit to join in too.
“For a man who has spent over a decade preaching the virtues of prudence the callous disregard the Prime Minister is now showing for the long term security of taxpayers’ money beggars belief.
“These actions just seem to further indicate that the Prime Minister is hell bent on destroying what little economic credibility he has left.”
The party’s petition on the issue is at www.ourcampaign.org.uk/northernrock
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3 Comments
Vince must and can lead the assault on this. Darling’s credibility must evaporate over this.
Vince was v good today – much better than the sixthform frothing of Osborne. V noticeable he asked the important questions for the North East – the effect on the NR Foundation and the effect on Tyneside jobs – which Darling glaringly failed to answer
It is not Alastair Darling’s credibility that Vince is tearing apart. Darling is merely His Master’s Voice on this issue; and every time he fails to answer Vince, the more obvious that becomes.