On average, Americans upgrade their mobile phone every 18 months, so I’m told by PR Newswire today. I have no reason to doubt this, beyond wondering what form of masochism it is that drives mobile owners to renew the bloody thing within 24 hours of having finally mastered how to use it.
Meanwhile, James Titbrain in the Maily Telegraph warns that a Labour victory in May’s general election would lead to the UK economy coming to resemble struggling France. And his source for this is….Bank of America. Not being a Labour supporter myself, I can nevertheless reassure all Sloggers that this is rather like BCCI warning us that the collapse of the German Bundesbank is imminent. (This does not, of course, change my view that Ed Miliband is a man whose sole remaining natural instinct is to run from the sound of gunfire).
I find myself wondering tonight whether there might be some sort of resemblance between fractional reserve banking and fracking. Apart from the obvious jeu de mot in the spelling, what I’m getting at here is that while fracking aims to squeeze the very last centilitre out of the Earth’ fossile fuel supply, in a similar way, fractional reserve banking’s mission is to rip the last buttons off the shirt of every poor unfortunate who borrows from it. Just a thought.
HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver today accepts that his bank “failed to live up to the standards expected of it”. Given that what we’ve come to expect from banks is lower than the most lithe limbo dancer could ever crawl beneath, that really is some admission. Unfortunately, Mr Gulliver damned himself when he said the bank was now “putting in place world-class financial crime, regulatory compliance and tax transparency standards, enforced by a compliance team of more than 7,000 people”. The key phrases pointing to an eternity in Hell would be ‘world class’, ‘regulatory compliance’ and ‘transparency standards’. What on Earth is it that persuades the PR chaps we can’t see this coming from 40 miles away?
And finally, Nigel Farage said on his weekly LBC show Phone that Ed Miliband may “come to regret” using the word “dodgy” in a speech on Conservative donors.The Ukip supremo suggested that Miliband’s decision to call Tory donor’s “dodgy” was ill advised.
While applauding this fine sentiment in relation to false accusers, I do surmise – given that Nigella Average’s favourite donating people include shady unelected pollster Lord Ashcroft, cloud-ridden pornographer Richard Desmond, and Antipodean antimatter Rupert Murdoch – that such assertions belong under the age-old heading, ‘Well, you would say that’.
The Slog 