Browse content similar to John Mann MP - UK Treasury Select Committee. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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-- boat overturned. Now it is time I talk. | :00:10. | :00:14. | |
Britain's politicians seem to have conflicting impulses when it comes | :00:14. | :00:19. | |
to the banks. They advocate root and branch reform to tame banking | :00:19. | :00:23. | |
excesses. They bristle at suggestions that London might | :00:23. | :00:29. | |
forfeit its status as the world's pre-eminent financial centre. My | :00:29. | :00:35. | |
guess today, John Mann, was at the centre of the heated debate of UK | :00:35. | :00:40. | |
banking. Can politicians impose their will on the huge banks | :00:40. | :00:50. | |
:00:50. | :01:10. | ||
without damaging Britain's economic prospects? | :01:10. | :01:15. | |
John Mann, welcome to HARDtalk. Earlier this summer, you made a lot | :01:15. | :01:22. | |
of headlines when you characterise to Barclays Bank as a "a rotten, | :01:22. | :01:27. | |
thieving bank". Do you stand by that phrase? Absolutely, that's | :01:27. | :01:31. | |
what they were doing by manipulating the market specific at | :01:31. | :01:37. | |
the time - the LIBOR rate. inter-bank lending rate. So many | :01:37. | :01:42. | |
banks depend on that. Fundamentally, that costs people money. It costs | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
the poorest people money, who have sub-prime mortgages. It cost local | :01:47. | :01:51. | |
authorities money, they lost money in the United States because of | :01:52. | :01:56. | |
what they did. There were real losers, that is why what they did | :01:56. | :02:00. | |
may well be criminal. It was certainly ethically and morally | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
wrong. And we know that the bank has now accepted responsibility. | :02:05. | :02:10. | |
The CEO, Bob Diamond, he has gone along with other senior staff. I | :02:10. | :02:20. | |
come back to the phrase "Ben Rutten and feeding bank". -- a rotten. Are | :02:20. | :02:23. | |
you suggesting that everyone better get out of that bank right away | :02:23. | :02:27. | |
because it simply cannot be trusted? No, I'm not, because what | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
I said at the time and repeatedly since is that Barclays was one of | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
wants to many, over 20 banks that appear to be doing exactly the same | :02:35. | :02:40. | |
thing. So they are all rotten and thieving, are they? It's the | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
investment bank that's the problem. Not the retail bank, the high | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
street bank that people see in their everyday lives, but | :02:46. | :02:52. | |
investment banking. At its very core, investment banking that | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
trades the financial crash from 2008, remains a rotten to its core. | :02:56. | :03:01. | |
Excessively greedy, excessive risk. Also, clearly, potential | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
criminality. That is why I used that phrase, it's absolutely | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
accurate. I'm interested in language, you are a politician and | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
language matters and the way you use it matters. You sit on the | :03:12. | :03:17. | |
Treasury Select Committee in a certain position of influence. | :03:17. | :03:21. | |
Other words you have used recently - you are talking about Morgan | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
Stanley and other investment banks and use a "investment banks operate | :03:25. | :03:33. | |
in cartels. They hunt as a pack and their profit as oligarchs". That's | :03:33. | :03:36. | |
because they do. That's the fundamental problem with investment | :03:36. | :03:43. | |
banking. I illustrated that with an ongoing example, the attempt to | :03:43. | :03:50. | |
sell off Direct Line Insurance where a whole raft of insurance, | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
investment banks, have been invited in to assist the process. That is a | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
cartel situation. Do these words I am quoting from you - they make | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
great soundbite and people like me love quoting them, but they're not | :04:03. | :04:06. | |
really responsible politics, are they? They are not really practical | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
in any way because you are surely not suggesting that these banks, | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
which you describe as cartels, you like and then to wolves hunting in | :04:15. | :04:18. | |
packs, profiting as oligarchs, you are not suggesting they should all | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
be rendered illegal and tossed out of the country? No, but the culture | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
within the in the way that they have behaved as fundamentally | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
flawed. It is forward economically and it has created this financial | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
crisis, the biggest crisis we have had since the 1930s. It's because | :04:34. | :04:39. | |
of the way investment banking operates. It's been easy profits, | :04:39. | :04:43. | |
excessive risk, but they have operated together in setting up | :04:43. | :04:48. | |
these systems. The way this really works is the mergers and | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
acquisitions, the asset stripping it takes place, whereby they | :04:51. | :04:57. | |
getting to a company, as they have to do, under domestic laws, in | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
order to advise those companies on a takeover. Having got the inside | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
information, they are able to use their market position in order to | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
manipulate the share price to ensure that whatever happens, they | :05:09. | :05:13. | |
get their huge fees. That has happened routinely across the world | :05:13. | :05:19. | |
and that is a fundamental weakness in the world economy. With your | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
extraordinarily negative view of the integrity and value systems | :05:22. | :05:29. | |
that operate within the big banks, why is it that when the New York | :05:29. | :05:34. | |
State Department of Finance regulators, when they launched an | :05:34. | :05:41. | |
attack on Standard Charter and other big British banks, you cried | :05:41. | :05:46. | |
foul and appeared to suggest in public that they had no right to be | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
castigating Standard Chartered Bank. Surely they would say exactly the | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
things about Standard Chartered that you would say about other | :05:52. | :05:58. | |
banks? No, I had castigated Standard Chartered and what they | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
had done, and I was calling for them to be held to account. What I | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
was challenging is the idea that this is a British problem, a London | :06:06. | :06:11. | |
problem. I was doing so for two reasons. Firstly, because if it was, | :06:11. | :06:16. | |
that creates a particular problem for our economy. Secondly, and more | :06:16. | :06:21. | |
fundamentally, if it's wrong, that it's not a London problem, and | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
that's how it's been analysed in the United States and elsewhere, | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
then we would get the remedies. This is just as much a problem of | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
America and the United States as it is of anywhere else in the world. | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
It seems here that you as a politician allowed your nationalism | :06:36. | :06:42. | |
to trump your stand against the banks. No, exactly the opposite has | :06:42. | :06:48. | |
been going on. What is happening is that I would call it a political | :06:48. | :06:55. | |
imperative in the United States that is restricting what they're | :06:55. | :06:57. | |
doing in challenging their own banks. What we are doing is | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
challenging foreign banks, in particular British banks. That's | :07:01. | :07:06. | |
not true, you know that's not true. You cited, chapter and verse, or | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
Morgan Stanley being hauled through the regulatory system time and | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
again for alleged abusers. Whereas the publicity and the headlines in | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
the US on that? They're all over the press, if you care to look for | :07:19. | :07:26. | |
them.... It has been shown that Morgan Stanley violated the rules | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
and the US regulatory authorities had come down like a ton of bricks. | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
What's interesting is that we have to search for it. We have to look - | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
because of the US banking secrecy Act we have to look at what the | :07:37. | :07:41. | |
courts were seeing in order to get the reporting from the courts, in | :07:41. | :07:45. | |
order to see what was happening. That contrasted totally with the | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
way in which they have put British banks on the front pages, | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
suggesting, and it is their language, that this is a London | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
problem. It isn't a London problem, it's a problem of investment | :07:56. | :08:00. | |
banking. But there is a profound problem in London, he would accept | :08:00. | :08:06. | |
that? And also in Germany, Japan and the United States. But as an MP, | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
it seems you would want to focus on the London problem. '' Boris | :08:09. | :08:19. | |
:08:19. | :08:22. | ||
Johnson who took a stand - Chartered -- standard Chartered | :08:22. | :08:30. | |
were found... Boris Johnson said the US regulators were in danger of | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
launching a self-interested attack on the London stage as the pre- | :08:34. | :08:38. | |
eminent global drive off. I can understand why he was worried about | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
that, why aren't you worried about that? The problem isn't London | :08:42. | :08:46. | |
banks, not what's happening in London, but with international | :08:46. | :08:50. | |
banks and the international banking community. If it was a situation | :08:50. | :08:53. | |
that we are the ones who have got it wrong, then we could put that | :08:53. | :08:58. | |
right. In a sense, it would be easy for politicians because we would be | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
the ones who would have to catch up. I am not saying the exact opposite | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
- there are things we need to put right in this country, because | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
there are things. We have lax regulation. I have maintained that | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
for a long time. As a Labour MP it's a bit embarrassing for you, | :09:13. | :09:21. | |
isn't it? To use the euphemism of Tony Brown and Gordon -- Tony Blair | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
and Gordon Brown, it's a light touch. We have had that from | :09:25. | :09:30. | |
successive governments here. under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
there was a particular policy too, used the phrase again, engaged in | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
the light touch regulation to make Britain an international financial | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
powerhouse. There were very few of us who were outside that consensus | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
in Parliament and around Westminster who said that that | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
wasn't a good thing. Some of us thought that was a mistake at the | :09:49. | :09:54. | |
time. The Americans thought it was a mistake at the time, which brings | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
us back to this debate, I do want to take it too far, but the fact is | :09:58. | :10:06. | |
there is a lot of evidence to support him died no -- the people | :10:06. | :10:09. | |
who say that the light touch approach taken by Tony Blair and | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
Gordon Brown was a catastrophic mistake. The lack of transparency | :10:15. | :10:18. | |
in American investment banks that led to the situation of Lehman | :10:18. | :10:24. | |
Brothers collapsing, accounting systems that allowed it to collapse | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
with no-one intervening, that is just as much part of the problem. | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
What we need to do is ensure we tackle the problems, not the wrong | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
perceptions. London has problems, but they are not London problems, | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
their international banking problems. Our regulation is to | :10:41. | :10:47. | |
relax, but is what America had, Germany, Japan and the others. It | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
is a world financial crisis. If it just was a British problem I would | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
be there every day shouting that we get our act together and catch up | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
to the rest of the world. If it were as simple as that... But it is | :10:59. | :11:04. | |
not. The Americans concentrating on the London problem of the eggs them | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
of their responsibility to look at why at this moment in time, for | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
example, Mexican drug cartels have been highlighted with HSBC, but the | :11:13. | :11:15. | |
vast majority of their money laundering is done through American | :11:15. | :11:21. | |
banks. American regulators have sat on their farms about it. They | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
should be even-handed with what they do. There are major problems | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
in terms of the lack of transparency, the official culture, | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
the amount of greed. We have spoken to American politicians and | :11:33. | :11:37. | |
regulators and we challenged them about what they are doing. It seems | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
that your responsibility right now as an MP and a member of the | :11:40. | :11:44. | |
finance committee is to consider Britain's position, not the United | :11:44. | :11:51. | |
States' position. You have got a problem because, just as you demand | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
new regulation, new integrity in the British banking system, you | :11:54. | :11:59. | |
cannot afford to see one of the most powerful sectors of the | :11:59. | :12:06. | |
British economy neutered. response we should have to the | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
international banking crisis is to ensure that our systems, | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
transparency, regulation is effective. A simple question - do | :12:14. | :12:20. | |
you want to see financial-services account for something like 10% of | :12:20. | :12:24. | |
British GDP as they do at the moment? Would you like to see | :12:24. | :12:28. | |
almost a million jobs in financial services? It is that something to | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
be sustained and welcomed or is it something that Britain needs to | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
leave behind? What I want to see is a financial sector here that lends | :12:36. | :12:40. | |
to British businesses, that doesn't undermine the British economy | :12:40. | :12:45. | |
because of its short-term culture. What effect would regulation, with | :12:45. | :12:51. | |
fat sound basis... Answer the question, do you want a British | :12:51. | :12:55. | |
financial sector that is as powerful in the future as it has | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
been in the past? As successful in the future as in the past? If we | :12:59. | :13:04. | |
can keep that many jobs, we should. The only way we will do it is by | :13:04. | :13:08. | |
being ahead of the Game in terms of the regulation and the transparency. | :13:08. | :13:12. | |
If we are behind, we will lose those jobs. Our banks will keep | :13:12. | :13:17. | |
being hit. Well, that brings us to the specifics of regulation. The | :13:17. | :13:22. | |
government is keen to act, it is pushing through this financial- | :13:22. | :13:25. | |
services legislation which will beef up the banking. They have | :13:25. | :13:28. | |
learned a painful lesson, perhaps, a Labour government has learned it | :13:28. | :13:34. | |
too late from the past 12 years, that the tripartite system of the | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
Bank of England, the Treasury and the fine edge will services | :13:37. | :13:39. | |
authority acting together to regulate the financial sector | :13:39. | :13:49. | |
:13:49. | :13:51. | ||
doesn't work. -- financial-services authority.... I wish it was as | :13:51. | :13:55. | |
simple as shovelling the decks and hoping everything will work out. | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
That is not the Game we are in. Simply changing the structure does | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
nothing. I fear that what we will have is the perception of strong | :14:02. | :14:06. | |
regulation but the reality of nothing changing. An all powerful | :14:06. | :14:12. | |
Governor of the Bank of England who doesn't, in fact, have the | :14:12. | :14:16. | |
practical powers, the basis of legislation behind him in terms of | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
criminal sanctions. Especially, doesn't have the effectiveness of | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
driving down the transparency we need. None of that is there. In | :14:25. | :14:28. | |
particular, the one thing we could do to improve international banking | :14:28. | :14:33. | |
is put real pressure on the UK crown dependencies, the Cayman | :14:33. | :14:37. | |
Islands, the Virgin Islands and others, where money is hidden away | :14:37. | :14:42. | |
and no-one knows who has got what and where it is. It is fundamental | :14:42. | :14:51. | |
to the financial crisis that we He would close down Britain's | :14:51. | :15:00. | |
sovereign tax havens, were due? would use the full might of the | :15:00. | :15:05. | |
British authorities. I would put that to them bluntly. If we don't, | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
we are not fulfilling our proper responsibilities. It seems to me | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
that you're putting the Governor of the Bank of England in a tough | :15:13. | :15:19. | |
situation. You say he won't be able to deliver. At the same time, when | :15:19. | :15:29. | |
he does deliver, as he did recently, leading to Bob Diamond walking out | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
of the door of Barclays, you and your committee criticised him by | :15:32. | :15:38. | |
saying it was not his right and duty to offer that explicit advice | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
to a CEO of a bank. As you know, my comments at the time were to | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
congratulate him and say he was quite right to use his perceived | :15:47. | :15:52. | |
power in order to ensure that Bob Diamond went. I didn't criticise | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
Mervyn King, I congratulated him. You know full well your committee | :15:56. | :16:02. | |
did. The committee, some of them did. The chairman and I clashed | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
over it. I think he was wrong on that. Mervyn King is the perception | :16:08. | :16:12. | |
of power, though. What we need is someone getting in before these | :16:12. | :16:17. | |
problems occur in the way we have seen. If he had intervene in the | :16:17. | :16:21. | |
LIBOR three years ago, it would have fed a three -- huge difference. | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
It seems that the Government's reforms are going to lead to a | :16:25. | :16:29. | |
beefed up Bank of England, which will have extraordinary powers to | :16:29. | :16:33. | |
regulate and monitor and oversee the financial sector and will not | :16:33. | :16:38. | |
be tied down by politicians. You want the politicians to have | :16:38. | :16:43. | |
authority. The Government says it is much better in the Independent | :16:43. | :16:49. | |
tens of the Bank of England. Exactly the opposite. I wanted | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
regulated independent of the Government. The Bank of England can | :16:52. | :16:58. | |
never be fully independent of politicians. Politicians, the | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
Chancellor and Parliament sets the remit of the Bank of England on | :17:01. | :17:08. | |
monetary policy. That is why it can never be wholly independent. The | :17:08. | :17:11. | |
policy parameters are set by politicians. That is the weakness | :17:11. | :17:16. | |
in what the Government has done. can't do you get away with this. | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
You've written that you want to see, for example, the most secret | :17:19. | :17:25. | |
minutes within the Bank of England open to MPs to investigate and to | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
look out. And to you, as a journalist. But why do you think | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
the public, which has seen everything exposed about MPs | :17:35. | :17:37. | |
fiddling expenses, what they've done with their own efforts to | :17:37. | :17:42. | |
acquire money for themselves, why would the public want to see MPs | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
given new powers over the Bank of England? Transparency creates | :17:46. | :17:52. | |
better behaviour. We've seen that with MPs' expenses. The same thing | :17:52. | :17:56. | |
that baking. You bring transparency into the arrangements, then the | :17:56. | :18:01. | |
behaviour changes. A fundamental problem with the Independent -- | :18:01. | :18:08. | |
international banking has been risked taking. The best way to hold | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
people accountable despite better transparency. That should be the | :18:12. | :18:18. | |
aim of the regulation. That regulation. It's not all about | :18:18. | :18:21. | |
regulation as far as you're concerned. You want to see a | :18:21. | :18:27. | |
complete change of policy toward the city of London. You talk about | :18:27. | :18:31. | |
taxes on derivatives trading and a ban on short selling. You want to | :18:31. | :18:36. | |
reintroduce the bank bonus tax. You want punitive taxes on giant | :18:36. | :18:44. | |
digital companies. If you got your way, the city of London as we know | :18:44. | :18:49. | |
it today would be massively diminished, agreed? If I got my way, | :18:49. | :18:55. | |
with those modest proposals, the city of London would actually | :18:55. | :19:00. | |
flourish because it would ensure that will banking, effective risk- | :19:00. | :19:07. | |
taking, fought out risk-taking, proper use of clients' money would | :19:07. | :19:11. | |
happen. I think that would restore confidence, not tarnish it. I tell | :19:11. | :19:15. | |
you what, it wouldn't. John Longworth, who represents the | :19:15. | :19:22. | |
British Chambers of Commerce said, the point is that all businesses | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
that create wealth, pay their taxes and comply with the law are good | :19:26. | :19:30. | |
companies. He is talking about companies that you regard as rotten | :19:30. | :19:33. | |
and thieving. Lehmann Brothers complied with the law and it | :19:33. | :19:38. | |
brought huge financial problems across the world. The problem with | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
Lehman Brothers is the could have been one of many investment banks | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
that did it. That's the danger of banks that are too big to fail. | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
When they go wrong, the taxpayer is required, not just in this country | :19:49. | :19:55. | |
but many countries across the world, to bail them out. All we need to | :19:55. | :20:00. | |
ensure is that there is proper controls to ensure those banks | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
cannot hold the taxpayers to ransom every time they take too much risk | :20:04. | :20:09. | |
for their own good. Not long ago we had David Miller Band on this | :20:09. | :20:15. | |
programme. He made it clear that a return to the big state, as he puts | :20:15. | :20:21. | |
it, is a political dead end. He says, bashing the bridge, bashing | :20:22. | :20:27. | |
banks and big business will not work. He pointed out that at the | :20:27. | :20:31. | |
last election not a single business endorsed Labour. If you get your | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
way, that's just what's going to happen. Having set up and run a | :20:36. | :20:41. | |
successful business, one of the few on the Labour benches, my instinct | :20:41. | :20:45. | |
is that what business wants is the ability to lend money and get it at | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
a reasonable rate. They want certainty in economic policy and | :20:50. | :20:55. | |
banking. If businesses get that, then people are prepared to take | :20:55. | :20:58. | |
risks to invest. That is what I want to see. That's what will | :20:58. | :21:03. | |
create jobs. What is stalling the economy is the lack of that. All we | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
need a banks that we can Reliant and that means that banks that are | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
growing businesses can rely on. That's all we do not have at the | :21:10. | :21:15. | |
moment. Do think there is a battle for Labour's economic policy making | :21:15. | :21:22. | |
Saul at the moment? You and people like you are focused on bashing the | :21:22. | :21:30. | |
banks. You are at one under the agreement -- one end of the | :21:30. | :21:35. | |
argument. Tony Blair said we have to be credible with business. We | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
can't go into the next election without the support of a single CEO | :21:39. | :21:44. | |
from a big corporation. There are two different and so of this Labour | :21:44. | :21:50. | |
Party argument, aren't they? wouldn't say I am at one end of it. | :21:50. | :21:54. | |
I do not think it is nearly as simple as that. The issue is, how | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
do we regulate banks effectively? Its in the interests of the | :21:59. | :22:04. | |
shareholders of banks that fail will represented. It is in the | :22:04. | :22:07. | |
interests of the shareholders of Standard Chartered that there is | :22:07. | :22:14. | |
the transparency. The powers are want to see are the ones whereby | :22:14. | :22:18. | |
there is the ability to ensure that shareholders' interests had been | :22:18. | :22:22. | |
looked after. One of the big weaknesses but investment banks has | :22:22. | :22:27. | |
been the way they have misused their clients' money. They had not | :22:27. | :22:34. | |
looked after it in an honourable way. It is one of the big | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
criticisms that has been there. That is affecting the markets. | :22:39. | :22:43. | |
question is how radical are you prepared to be? De want to see the | :22:43. | :22:47. | |
Labour Party adopt policies which, in essence, would use the law to | :22:47. | :22:52. | |
force these sorts of changes in the way shareholders have powers, in | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
the ways banks remunerate their top staff? Is it the more, you believe, | :22:56. | :23:02. | |
must deliver? The ball is one part of the equation. As they are doing | :23:02. | :23:08. | |
across the west of the world... told me earlier on that the US was | :23:08. | :23:12. | |
lax when it comes to this, you now tell me they are moving forward. | :23:12. | :23:15. | |
They have gone forward with legislation. They are beginning to | :23:15. | :23:21. | |
legislate. It is a balance in the approach that is needed. We need | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
effective regulation here. That's not big states. It's effective | :23:26. | :23:32. | |
regulation. The two do not go together. It isn't about Government | :23:32. | :23:38. | |
intervening. In the last four years, we have seen governments having to | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
intervene with vast amounts of taxpayers'' money. That is what I | :23:43. | :23:46. | |
fundament of the objective. We want banks that can stand on their own | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
two feet, not banks that are relying on the rest of us, the rest | :23:51. | :23:58. | |
of the economy, to bail them out. That actually is a much more open | :23:58. | :24:03. | |
and free market system. In just a very few words, how confident are | :24:03. | :24:05. | |
you that your vision of this radical reform needed within the | :24:05. | :24:09. | |
financial sector is going to be delivered? Talking to people in the | :24:09. | :24:13. | |
city, I don't think it's that radical. I think it's sensible. I | :24:13. | :24:17. |