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George Osborne told a blatant untruth – he must apologise

July 9, 2012 6:04 pm

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George Osborne claimed last week that members of Gordon Brown’s inner circle were “clearly involved” in pressuring banks to manipulate LIBOR. Today, Paul Tucker – Deputy Governor of the Bank of England – was at the Treasury Select Committee. According to James Kirkup in the Telegraph, the conversation went like this:

He was asked if any Labour minister or adviser had tried to “lean on” him in 2008 over Libor rates.

He replied: “Absolutely not”

Any minister?

“Absolutely not”

Shriti Vadera, Gordon Brown’s close aide and minister?

“Absolutely not. I don’t think I spoke to Shriti Vadera through this process.”

Ed Balls?

“No.”

Any other Labour minister?

“No”.

Sometimes in politics you need to know when you’re beaten, and admit when you were wrong. Osborne has told a blatant untruth about Labour politicians.

Apologise George, do it publicly, and do it now…

Update: It seems Osborne isn’t the only person who should be apologising. Tory HQ circulated a briefing on July 4th entitled “Bob Diamond evidence points finger at Gordon Brown, Ed Balls and Shriti Vadera as the ‘senior figures’ trying to fiddle LIBOR.”

Wrong – it now seems.

The person who circulated this? The Twitter-living Tory Press officer Richard Holden.

Someone else who should be getting their best stationary out and lining up an apology is former Osborne aide and now backbench MP Matt Hancock, who took his obsession with Ed Balls to new heights when he said:

“It is now shockingly clear that senior figures in the Labour Government were involved in the question of what happened to Libor rates.”

Also wrong – it now seems.

Will any of these people have the good grace to apologise to Ed Balls et al?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

    This is major news, top story on the BBC website and yet nothing on the 6 news that leads with John terry then HoL 

    and people think the BBC is biased against the govt ? 

    ha ha ha 

    We must press for the apology as MUCH as possible

  • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

    Ed Balls statement: “It is now absolutely clear the Chancellor’s allegations last week were totally false and completely without foundation”

    and Ed’s speech was very good today on the banking system. The ideas taking shape are right and for the govt to claim that we are following them is pure nonsense.

    • JoeDM

      Seems to me that Tucker, and others at the Bank of England, is either incompetent or being economical with the truth.

      • Dave Postles

        There is a strong case for incompetence, which has been an allegation against King’s regime for some time.

        • treborc

          The problem is we are living in this dream world of seven banks on the high street, lets just for a laugh say Northern Rock or Virgin says  we are bigger we need to grow so we will buy up a smaller bank.

          Then this Spanish giant comes along and buys up Virgin who has just bought up another bank and guess what we are back in the same mess we are today.

          Government would not allow that to happen, which government.

          It’s the same problem with the power industry we were told lots of smaller companies would offer competition  and keep prices low until of course those smaller companies were all bought up and you then have a cartel.

          The one thing is sure the FSA is not fit for purpose it failed completely and to be honest so did the BoE and so did the Government.

  • Just_Another_Voter

    He has nothing to apologise for.
    Labour have been telling us that bankers are untrustworthy and cannot be believed, now they want us to believe Tucker, a banker.
    The party all over the place these days on banking. Ed Miliband said today that banks should be split up only a few years after Gordon Brown forced them to merge.
    Chuka Umunna said the Co-Op bank should buy some branches from banks forced to sell them. The Co-Op bank hold the Labour party’s debt so Umunna clearly has a vested interest in promoting the Co-Op’s cause.

    • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

      Where is the evidence then that in 2008 Ed Balls told the BoE to tell Barclays to cheat ?

      Or anyone at Labour ? Osbirne could not produce any evidence at the despatch box.

      • Just_Another_Voter

         Didn’t Tucker say that he had no record of the conversation, unlike Barclays. I smell a rat and think Tucker is lying to save his own skin.

        • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

          so where is the evidence ?

          simple there is none at all, so will Osborne apologise in the house. PMQ’s could be real fun on Wednesday

          • Just_Another_Voter

             As you say, no evidence either way as Tucker has mysteriously lost the record of the conversation. So who to believe? I guess for Labour supporters it’s a bit tricky, the evil bankster or the evil Tory? In this case I suspect they will side with the bankster. For now.

          • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

            no just the truth, no one at all can back up what Osborne said. An apology will happen in some underhand way hoping no one will notice.

          • Just_Another_Voter

             So you believe the bankster? If so, just this time?
            After a few days of Labour saying Tucker is the man to be believed it will be back to another predictable round of banker bashing.

          • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

            who else is there to believe  ? Osborne, again I say where is the evidence for it ?

            Nothing Diamond said (he only spoke to Tucker) and nor Tucker.

            Does Osborne have the evidence, come on then ? Must rember the perm sec at HMT then is now the Cabinet Perm Sec.

          • Just_Another_Voter

             When Tucker can produce the ‘lost’ record of the conversation I might think about listening to him. Until them I will have to follow the Labour party line of not believing a word bankers say, so would have to believe Osborne.

          • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

            ha ha amazing stuff, how come in the Commons as a matter of record Osborne refused to back up his comments. 

            why is it all the tory commentators I have read say he got it wrong. Defend Osborne as others will he will only lead to your downfall.

          • Just_Another_Voter

             I’m not defending him, I’m taking the Labour party line and not believing Tucker who is an evil bankster.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

            What benefit to him in  backing Labour’s account,then?

          • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

            Most of Labour’s criticism is directed at institutional targets. Diamond became a focus only because he was head of the institution and therefore had to take responsibility.

            As Ed said: “… this is about more than one man – this is about the culture and practices of the entire banking system, which is why we need an independent, open, judge-led public inquiry.”

          • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

            Most of Labour’s criticism is directed at institutional targets. Diamond became a focus only because he was head of the institution and therefore had to take responsibility.

            As Ed said: “… this is about more than one man – this is about the culture and practices of the entire banking system, which is why we need an independent, open, judge-led public inquiry.”

          • JoeDM

             Yep.   Tucker either lied to the committee or was incompetent in his job.   Either way his career now looks to be at a dead-end.

        • robertcp

          Blaming the politicians no longer in power is the best way to save your skin I would have thought.

          • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

            except you have to have some evidence to back up such a claim.

          • robertcp

            I think that you have misunderstood my post.  I was saying that blaming the politicians no longer in power would have been rational if he was lying.  Instead, he has made the present Chancellor look very silly.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan
  • John Dore

    He must resign.

    • aracataca

      Agree JD but let’s be realistic about what is achievable here. An apology and a retraction must be our primary aim.

      • John Dore

        None of them resign. None of them have honour, I think they all lie.

        This is a damp squib.

  • treborc

    Of course no politician would lie , of course no person would lie to protect their jobs, politics and politician are now way down past the gutter.

    But really if nobody knew anything about Libor, you have to ask your self what the hell were these people holding public office.

  • http://twitter.com/ytfcbadger Martin Baker

    George Osborne’s reaction on the Libor scandal right from the start was pretty damn clear. He didn’t want to investigate what had gone wrong. He just wanted to score a few cheap political points. Unfortunately, it’s backfired badly on him and made him look weak. Maybe next time he needs to concentrate on being a Chancellor and coming up with a few policies that don’t require u-turns every five minutes?

    • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

      After the IHT thing many said was a political master stroke it has shown when in power he could be the worse ever chancellor.

      • LondonStatto

        He won’t even be the worst chancellor out of the last three.

      • jaime taurosangastre candelas

        He would need to be spectacularly bad to be worse than Gordon Brown.    I will admit he is doing his best to be that, but even so, he has a ruinous track record to emulate, as well as some very well documented personality disorders.  

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

          Hilarious. Osborne is far worse than Brown ever knew how to be. At least Brown had some idea of where he wanted to be. Osborne hasn’t a clue – he is an incompetent and out of his depth

          • JoeDM

             It was Brown (advised by Balls) that setup the tripartite regulation system that has failed so spectacularly and has caused this mess !!!!!

            Not only that, but Brown was the instigator of the ‘Enron style’  off-balance sheet accounting of the PFI deals that are now causing so much damage to the public sector accounts.

            The man was utterly incompetent. 

          • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

            You can trace it all back to Thatcher’s Big Bang (perhaps you’re too young to remember, so check here*)
            It’s all down the unleashed private sector. The corporations wanted deregulation, they got it and New Labour bought into it. And look how it’s all turned out.

            The efficiency of the market turned out to be a fairy tale. For the believers it is the god that failed.

            *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(financial_markets)

        • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

          If Osborne starts “doing his best” it will be time throw the towel in, pack your bags and emigrate.

  • Peter Barnard

    That’s what an expensive public school education is for - to teach the children always to be honest and upstanding in life.

    • Just_Another_Voter

       Are you talking about Osborne or Balls?

      • Peter Barnard

        Well, obviously it failed with Osborne.

        • Just_Another_Voter

           And with Balls, the man who has some dubious expenses history. And before you say it, yes, so has Osborne.

          • Peter Barnard

            Osborne is the subject here, a man who took an uncorroborated and untested (not to say decidedly ambiguous) email originated by Bob Diamond and went on to make a specific allegation about Balls.

            It did not matter that at the Treasury Select Committee Mr Diamond stated that he did not have the impression during Mr Tucker’s telephone call that he was being asked to play funny games with Barclays’ LIBOR submittals. Osborne ploughed on, regardless, and his specific allegation has been shown to be wrong.

            If Osborne had an iota of character, he would admit that his Spectator allegation was wrong.

    • JoeDM

       What?   Politicians caught telling  fibs?

      Whatever next !!!!!!

      • Peter Barnard

        But the Conservatives told us that the era of “spin” was over, Mr DM,  and that they were going to be “different from Labour.”

  • Robert_Crosby

    I don’t disagree with your article, Mark.  Shadow Cabinet members and some backbenchers have only got themselves to blame though, at least in some respects… they have stupidly accepted the Tories’ mantra that we messed the economy up, that Brown is ‘Beelzebub Incarnate’ and that EVERYTHING Labour did in office was appalling.  

    No wonder Osborne and other Tories such as the loathsome Matthew Hancock think that they can get away with saying absolutely anything about us.  They don’t think we can or will hit back. 

  • Brumanuensis

    There are three reason why Osborne is an idiot here:

    1). What Tucker has said.

    2). Diamond admitted in his testimony that Libor manipulation had planned before the conversation with Tucker.

    3). As Daniel Knowles explained:

    “The now infamous suggestion of “officials” that Barclays’ Libor was too high wasn’t a suggestion by Labour ministers or civil servants that it should be lowered. Rather it was a fear that Barclays was in trouble, being passed on subtly by Paul Tucker. And even afterwards, though Libor fell, Barclay’s low-balling had no part in that, because its figure was still in the high end of the submissions. Under the system, the extreme entries are knocked out of the general figure”.

    So in short, Osborne shot his mouth off and is now repenting at leisure. His strategic skill almost equals that of Gordon Brown.

    • JC

      Tucker only said that he’d not been leaned on by politicians. He didn’t (and was not given the opportunity to) say that he hadn’t had some pressure from the Treasury civil servants (who might have been under some political pressure). The questions put to him were very pointed and aimed to discredit Bob Diamond, not to find out the truth.

      On the other hand, we might not want to find out the truth anyway.

      • Brumanuensis

        I think Occam’s Razor applies here. Conspiracies are almost never as circuitious as the one you’re implying.

        • JC

          There’s no implication here. What I’m saying is that Tucker was questioned by incompetents who were asking pointed questions to get the answers they could use, not making any investigation into what actually happened. That is what leads me to believe that the real truth might be too hard to handle.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

    as Nick robinson says 

    Tory MP Andrea Leadsom tells Osborne “I think obviously he made a mistake and I think he should apologise (to Ed Balls

    thanks Angela for PMQ’s !

  • Alan Giles

    BBC Radio 4 carried this story on the “Morning Briefing” programme at 0530 today. It was it’s second item (the top story, perhaps understandably was the murder of a policeman in Clacton.

    Andrea Leadsom, of the Treasury Select Committee, said Mr Osborne “made a mistake” and “he should apologise”. 

    Let us hope he does do so this morning

    • Alan Giles

      I should have said that Ms Leadsom is a Conservative M.P.

  • franwhi

    The theatrics of this whole thing is perhaps intentionally obscuring the real issue of what is going on in our banks. I’m not that concerned about the apologies stuff cos politicians are all very well paid and pretty shameless people who are expert at disguising their own incompetence and involvement in the banking regulation omni-shambles. None of them come out of this blameless and although George Osborne is a nasty pasty it’s hard to buy Ed Balls as a victim. Punch and Judy politics with no merit beyond expensive entertainment but hardly productive politics in a business sense.  

    • hp

      Exactly.
      The charade of Balls claiming he has ‘integrity’ is just dreadful.
      He imagines that we have no memory of his past exploits.
      Half of this bunch of fools is meant to be in government.
      The other half is meant to be holding them to account.
      If only they would get on with what they are meant to be doing and not playing the a-hole.

      • treborc

        Banking and the Politicians and the directors of banks the Motto…

        See no evil, hear no evil, and blame everyone else.

  • Daviddee

    Why should Mensch apologise ?? Have you got no sympathy for her ?

    She has clearly admitted that when she was younger she overdid the fruit gums and they messed with her brain !! However she did not say whether it was messed so that it is now better or worse !!

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