Gillian Tett looks beyond yesterday's Today item on "jurisdiction shopping" by banks. She warns there is an unintended consequence of the current worldwide desire to bash the bankers. Legislators in key countries are busy unilaterally changing internationally-agreed rules. Unfortunately, Tett says, this makes it more likely that practices illegal in one country but legal in another will be used to cover up looming catastrophes in the capital markets.
Would you Adam and Eve it? Breaking news by Jon Snow on 4 News reckons two MPs have been criminally charged with fiddling expenses. Some light trawling through old news found that the two charged could face up to 7-10 years in prison... If that had been me or you fiddling thousands of pounds of tax payers' money, it wouldn't have taken this long to reach a conclusion. Do you think a custodial sentence is fair?
But if they did, I imagine they'll just 'retrospectively' change it anyway.
Absolutely, these people are supposed to be representing us, and this is just a different form of fraud that the general public cannot perform.
It's a bit like footballers, they, at least in my eyes, should be acting as role models.
Politicians are not only being funded by us, they are supposed to be making the law that the rest follow.
They are not above it, and a custodial sentence would tell the rest of the House of Commons, as well as the new wave of MP's that come in at the next election that they are accountable and that they have a duty to serve the electorate for the reasons that they stood as MP's (hopefully to serve the public), rather than for financial incentives.