© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
The United Kingdom’s General Election of 2015 is deadlocked with all sides cancelling each other out. There is a good overview of the situation provided by PoliticoEurope this morning. I drew the analogy from a game of noughts and crosses.
I wonder if it will be the last before another Scottish Independence referendum.
To the fair county of Shropshire for the annual cartoon festival. The theme this year being the tricky subject of ‘style’. Pity me!
The one speculatulation about the General Election of 2015 that might hold value is that the result will be a coalition of some sort. In this event, the much maligned leader of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg remains likely to play a pivotal part. Neither of the two leaders of the two ‘main’ parties looks as stable in his position as Clegg is, assuming he can hang on to his own seat in Sheffield Hallam.
And one thing the recent seven leader television debate showed is that Labour has far more to lose in terms of votes from the rise of nationalism outside England than the Tories do.
On a similar theme, there is also some excellent commentary on the apparent or coming collapse of the United Kingdom as a coherent political entity at Renewal, should you be minded for a bank holiday long read.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
HSBC helped cheat Her majesty’s Revenue and Customs of due revenues over many years according to this lively report following the disclosure of documents from the bank]s so-called Swiss files.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
Stephen Green, Baron of Hurstpierpoint and former Group Executive Chairman of theHSBC Banking Group is being widely questioned about his remarkable lack of managerial or executive oversight of its Swiss private banking arm before, during and after the financial crash of 2007/08.
This follows global public disclosure of information about opaque tax policies for high net worth individuals and the bank’s repeated business connections with money launders, terrorists and drug runners. Much of this results from a leak or whistleblower from within HSBC. You can watch an interview with the man concerned conducted by Faisal islam of Sky News here.
Thus far Stephen Green (aka the ‘ethical banker’) has avoided answering any questions at all.
Naturally after retiring from the financial industry in 2010, the present UK Prime Minister appointed him a Trade Minister. He served three years.
It seems likely that is all he will serve, despite his avowed faith because hilariously, Green is also a ordained priest in the Church of England. He is also author of a notable book called ‘Serving God, Serving Mammon’.
The cartoon owes something to the old game of Cluedo.
Updated: 15th February 2015.
The UK parliament has voted on and approved so-called third parent genetic donation to help prevent inherited disease caused by genetic malfunction outside the cell nucleus of the human body. This long sought approval has been extremely controversial.
This pithy piece of analysis puts it into context.
The coming coalition government will be debatably-modified as well.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
Mario Draghi, Governor of the European Central Bank is this week expected to announce massive program of government bond buying using something that looks almost exactly like ‘Quantitative easing’. This is a practice of increasing ‘liquidity’ in the financial markets already followed the US Federal Reserve, the UK Bank of England and the Bank of Japan since the global financial crash of 2007/08.
In so far as anyone can tell, its major effect so far has been to devalue currencies, boost asset prices for the truly wealthy and delay a reckoning that the bankrupt private financial institutions are, arguably, overdue.
© Matt Buck Hack cartoons
Here comes the election of 2015. – and here’s the splendid song from the Lego movie to help you keep your morale up during what is likely to be a trying period.
