Put reckless bankers in jail – Media roundup: June 19th, 2013

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Put reckless bankers in jail

Britain’s banking bosses should face jail if their decisions force fresh bailouts, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards says today. The commission’s hotly anticipated report urges the Chancellor, George Osborne, to oversee the creation of a new offence of “reckless misconduct in the management of a bank”. Were such an offence in place in the aftermath of the financial crisis, several banking leaders could have faced prosecution. The parliamentary commission, which was established by Mr Osborne to reform banking after the Libor scandal, describes the failure of senior financiers to accept blame for their actions as “dismal”. It says new rules are required to force executives to take proper responsibility. The report also calls for a new licensing regime for bankers, underpinned by strict rules to ensure traders and even branch staff who mis-sell  financial products are faced with the full force of penalties open to Britain’s financial watchdogs. – Independent

Generation Y are being won over by the Tories

The Conservative party under David Cameron has seen a 100% rise in support from younger people, while its popularity has decreased among the old, according to the first substantial analysis of the UK’s generational voting intentions. The party has seen support rise among so-called Generation Y – those born after 1980, so aged up to 33 – according to Ipsos MORI, which has analysed more than half a million interviews over a 17-year period. It found that before Cameron took over as leader in 2005, the party’s support was deeply stratified between age cohorts: 30% of the prewar generation favoured the Tories, compared with just 10% of Generation Y. Under Cameron though, support from the latter now stands at 20.5%, while the party has lost some of its older supporters, who may have decamped to Ukip or become floating voters. – Guardian

Other highlights

• Was Labour too late to pick up on the “Squeezed Middle”? – FT
• Dodgy texts from payday lenders – Political Scrapbook
• Real wages have been falling for 40 months – Duncan Weldon, Liberal Conspiracy
• Ed Miliband is standing firm on Syria, but is he caught in a trap? – Mary Riddell, Telegraph