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  • wingco
    replied
    So, what now? I wonder, from my ill-informed standpoint, if what happens is this; one by one, by stealth, individual agreements, eg Erasmus are renegotiated, once their disadvantage becomes painfully evident. Finally, we're pretty much where we were before, but not without a lot of pain, grief and billions down the shitter. Then, in ten years' time, once this demographic whose wishes are currently paramount in UK politics dies off in significant numbers, we think, fuck it, let's just rejoin the EU. I imagine this process, if it happens, occurring at the behest of business, industry, etc, as opposed to lobbying and argument by the Toynbees of this world, and something that would occur under the Tories as likely as it would Labour.

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  • elguapo4
    replied
    The DUP are going to love that.

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1342884143164760065

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  • Gangster Octopus
    replied
    Originally posted by wingco View Post
    Nef's appropriately extensive analysis is fully correct.
    Is he one of your centrist friends?

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  • Nefertiti2
    replied
    Originally posted by TonTon View Post

    So it's a financial services thing. Ta.

    What are financial services, by the way?.

    Stephen Keith Green, Baron Green of Hurstpierpoint (born 7 November 1948), is a British politician, former Conservative[1] Minister of State for Trade and Investment, former group chairman of HSBC Holdings plc, and Anglican priest.
    Aftermath[edit]


    After Green's retirement from HSBC, the questions that had begun to be asked about the bank's behaviour under his leadership continued. On 23 July 2012, the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 335-page report setting out HSBC's compliance failures over a ten year period. In the report, Senate investigators said the bank had bypassed the USA's sanctions against Iran, enabled money laundering by Mexican drug lords (chiefly for the Sinaloa Cartel),[13] and had conducted business with companies with links to terrorism.[9] The report quoted emails copied to Green detailing such dubious transactions and alleged that the bank had continued to allow them to continue even after he and his colleagues had promised to act.[3][19] Green told Sky News that he had "no case to answer" over the money laundering scandal, saying: "As and when issues were drawn to our attention, as we were seeking to grapple with the issues, we took action. I think we must acknowledge there were some failures of implementation. HSBC has expressed its regret for that. I share that regret."[20]

    Defending Green, Lord Oakeshott, a former Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: "Stephen Green was a thoughtful banker in holy orders. But if even he couldn't stop these scandals, banks like HSBC and Barclays aren't just too big to fail, they are clearly too big to control".[19]

    The Senate report prompted shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, Chris Leslie, to write to Green asking him to "place on the record – at the earliest opportunity – an assurance that you took every appropriate step if and when you became aware of the issues raised by this report" and asking a number of specific questions.[21] Leslie was unconvinced by Green's reply, in which he had written: "With regards [sic] to the bank's efforts to address its AML (anti-money laundering) and OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) compliance issues, HSBC has expressed its regret that there were failures of implementation in these areas, and I share that regret". Leslie maintained that Green's letter failed to:
    address the detailed questions about what he knew and when about these very serious issues. As a British Minister, an adviser to George Osborne on banking and a member of the Cabinet committee on banking reform, he is accountable first and foremost to Parliament. He cannot and should not hide behind "continuing discussions between HSBC and the US authorities" as a reason for failing to answer questions.

    Shortly afterwards, Green failed to attend the House of Lords to answer a Labour question about the affair. The Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde, defended Green, saying that his earlier employment with HSBC did not affect his ability to carry out his duties.[20]

    In February 2015, there was further criticism of Green and his leadership of HSBC after BBC Television broadcast a Panorama programme entitled The Bank of Tax Cheats exposing the complicity of HSBC's Swiss private bank, HSBC Private Banking Holdings (Suisse) SA, in helping more than 100,000 clients from over 200 countries evade tax worth hundreds of millions of pounds.[22] At the time of the alleged offences Green was the Swiss bank's chairman.[23] BBC presenter Richard Bilton confronted Green, who refused to discuss the issue saying only: "As a matter of principle I will not comment on the business of HSBC past or present". Chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge MP, said: "Either he didn't know and he was asleep at the wheel, or he did know and he was therefore involved in dodgy tax practices. Either way he was the man in charge and I think he has got really important questions to answer".[22] A few days after the Panorama broadcast, Green resigned as chairman of the advisory council for banking industry body, The City UK,[24] saying that he did not want to damage the effectiveness of the organisation in promoting good governance and doing the right thing.
    The Archbishop of Canterbury.


    Education[edit]


    Jusin Welby was educated at Eton College; and Trinity College, Cambridge, where his great-uncle, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, was then master. He graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and law; according to custom, he was later promoted to Master of Arts by seniority.[18]
    At the age of 19, he began speaking in tongues.[20]
    Business career[edit]


    Welby worked for eleven years in the oil industry, five of them for the French oil company Elf Aquitaine based in Paris. In 1984 he became treasurer of the oil exploration group Enterprise Oil plc in London, where he was mainly concerned with West African and North Sea oil projects. He retired from his executive position in 1989 and said that he sensed a calling from God to be ordained.[21]

    During his oil industry career, Welby became a congregation member at the evangelical Anglican church of Holy Trinity in Brompton, London.[1]

    In July 2013, following the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards Commission, Welby explained that senior bank executives avoided being given information about difficult issues to allow them to "plead ignorance".[22] He also said he would possibly have behaved in the same way and warned against punishing by naming and shaming individual bankers which he compared to the behaviour of a lynch mob.[22]

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  • diggedy derek
    replied
    Voting twice for Boris Johnson as London mayor is in no way something to boast about, or even admit in intelligent company.

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    That's a difficult question to answer quickly.

    A starting point would be that they generally aren't retail, but are directed at corporates, investment funds, other financial institutions and high net worth individuals.

    City rather than high street

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  • DCI Harry Batt
    replied
    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    A finding of equivalence by the EU will be needed in order for UK firms to continue to offer many financial services to the Union from the UK after 1 January.
    So it's a financial services thing. Ta.

    What are financial services, by the way? I realise I dont' really know what services are being sold into the EU.

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  • Toby Gymshorts
    replied

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  • Evariste Euler Gauss
    replied
    Why would I click through when the visible excerpt includes the statement "I voted for him twice as London mayor"? That's all I need to know I am bound to agree with Nef on this one.

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  • gt3
    replied
    Originally posted by wingco View Post
    Nef's appropriately extensive analysis is fully correct.
    Nef has played a blinder on this thread. Thank you Nefertiti2

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  • wingco
    replied
    Nef's appropriately extensive analysis is fully correct.

    Leave a comment:


  • Gangster Octopus
    replied
    So, someone to ignore. Ta.

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  • Nefertiti2
    replied
    He was (and still is) Tony Blair's chief cheerleader in the Independent. Used to be at the new Statesman. probably still thinks of himself as Centre Left.

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  • Gangster Octopus
    replied
    Is he yet another of these right-wing journos who I never heard of and everyone else on here keeps posting links to for no apparent reason?

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  • Nefertiti2
    replied
    Rentoul is a cunt.

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  • Diable Rouge
    replied
    John Rentoul appropriately writing for the Spectator:

    https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1342856852216930304
    Last edited by Diable Rouge; 26-12-2020, 16:01.

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    A finding of equivalence by the EU will be needed in order for UK firms to continue to offer many financial services to the Union from the UK after 1 January.

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  • DCI Harry Batt
    replied
    What does that mean, the equivalence thing?

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Oh

    That would explain the lack of guidance

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  • Ginger Yellow
    replied
    No equivalence decision:
    The Commission has assessed the UK's replies to the Commission's equivalence questionnaires in 28 areas. A series of further clarifications will be needed, in particular regarding how the UK will diverge from EU frameworks after 31 December, how it will use its supervisory discretion regarding EU firms and how the UK's temporary regimes will affect EU firms. For these reasons, the Commission cannot finalise its assessment of the UK's equivalence in the 28 areas and therefore will not take decisions at this point in time.

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  • Lang Spoon
    replied
    A triumph!

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  • Belhaven
    replied
    So, if I have got this right, tariffs are removed from products Britain will have to import from the EU (principally food), but not from the UK's one big export sector (financial services).

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  • Diable Rouge
    replied
    Some light Stephen's Day reading:

    https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1342763875847045122

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  • Eggchaser
    replied
    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
    Nice bit of Yellow Peril for the 20s.

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