We’re all in this together – except for the Labour Party…!
Back in the heady days of July 2009, a mere seven months after the onset of the ‘global banking crisis’, an event which Gordon Brown frequently reassured us had ‘started in America’ – and therefore was not really a British problem, those coming up for retirement were looking for a safe place to invest their savings and prepare for the future.
One product stood out head and shoulders against the others. Those of a cynical mind might have queried why the ‘utterly ethical’ Co-Op bank was offering a 15.29% gross yield on your money – almost double the rate available anywhere else, but then wasn’t the Co-Op bank the only bank that was set up to primarily benefit its customers rather than those dastardly bankers? Wasn’t it ultra cautious in who it lent money to, restricting itself to yogurt and lentil eating enterprises such as seven human rights areas, five environmental areas, four international development areas and five animal welfare issues – no need to feel guilty watching those cuddly, furry, Siberian Tigers with the big eyes face extinction, the Co-Op bank proudly announced that it had withheld £1 billion of finance from ‘unethical’ enterprises preferring to support the likes of the Siberian Tiger.
For some reason, they didn’t feel the same need to point out that one of the ‘ethical enterprises’ they were supporting was the wide eyed and nearing extinction, cuddly, furry, Labour Party, to the tune of £3,5 million. A debt that was already ten years old when they made their 15.29% offer, and on which the Labour party had managed to repay a niggardly average £18,000 a year – at no doubt a suitably generous low rate of interest. Since the Labour Party was also simultaneously advertising to its members the magnanimous offer from the Co-Op bank to lend up to £15,000 as an unsecured personal loan at 5.8% – a service which ensured the Labour Party got £75 commission for each supporter who took up this offer, a quick trip round my calculator tells me that if a mere 240 members a year took up the offer, that alone would account for the repayments apparently ‘made’ by the Labour Party.
Anybody else owing £3.5 million to a bank facing collapse would find their house snatched back, their business in tatters, and carefully planted stories in the media detailing their ‘luxurious lifestyle conned out of the bank‘ – but the media have confined themselves to the ‘truthful’ statement that the Labour Party and Trade Unions ‘bank’ with the Co-Op! They do, they do, they keep all their overdrafts with the Co-Op, loyal little customers that they are! No claims of ‘conning’ the bank out of millions where they are concerned.
Now the new City watchdog, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), has discovered a £1/£1.5 billion (no one is quite sure which yet) black hole in the Co-Op’s books, and yet another bank rescue is under way.
Guess who is feeling the pain? Not the Labour Party; not Ed Balls, one of the many MPs proudly sponsored by the Co-Operative Party, the political wing of the Co-Op movement; but the ordinary hard working men and women who invested their money in those PIBs (Permanent Interest Bearing Bonds) at 15.29% to fund their retirement. They cannot demand their money back, can’t withdraw their loan to the Co-Op Bank; all they can do is try to flog their bonds to someone else for whatever they can get, a somewhat forlorn hope – since they are about to take a 30% haircut on their savings!
We’re all in this together – unless you are the Labour Party.
June 17, 2013 at 20:05
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Slightly OT, but I notice that a couple of the Slog’s readers commented
upthread.
I must say that I rather went off the Slog after he started up his
‘paedofile’. Why? Because Anna had done a pretty good job in debunking at
least some of the claims made about Jimmy Savile (i.e. his supposedly visiting
her children’s home at the time she lived there). Faced with a choice of
believing the Slog, or believing Anna, I chose to believe Anna (although
perhaps I should believe nobody at all). And I am now inclined to think the
entire Yewtree paedophilia panic that seems to be sucking in more and more
famous names is more or less a complete fabrication aimed at blackening the
names of a great many well-loved broadcasters (not that I personally loved any
of them that much). What I don’t understand, however, is why such a
large-scale defamation campaign is being undertaken.
Back on topic, I shopped at my local co-op today, and got my third
£4-off-the-next-£30-you-spend coupon in the past week. A year or so ago, they
used to hand out these coupons with some regularity, and I always tried to use
them. But then a year or so back, they more or less stopped handing out any
such coupons at all. But now, in the past week or two, they’ve started handing
them out like confetti. I wonder if it relates to their current difficulties,
as outlined above. Perhaps it’s a way to pull in customers, and increase
liquidity. And in my case, it’s working. After all, the competing Tesco up the
road has only been offering derisory 12p vouchers.
- June 19, 2013 at 10:12
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Frank, the large-scale defamation campaign targeted at aged entertainers
is being run to deflect attention from the present day wholesale child abuse
which is rife amongst our politicians , civil service, legal professions, SS
social services & police force.
Take a look at the Hollie Greig case on ukcolumn.org
This is a huge & disgusting scandal, being hidden behind the
distraction smokescreen of prosecutions of has been entertainers, in order
to con the public that effective action is being taken against child
abusers.
- June 19, 2013 at 10:23
- June 19, 2013 at 11:47
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@JD
I’m guessing the journalists must be in on it too then.
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June 17, 2013 at 12:36
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The Co-op (pronounced up here as “the cooperative” – with definitely NO
hyphen and a long “oo” sound) seem to do rather a good job of running the
supermarkets out in the more remote islands.
Check out the one at Port Ellen on Islay, for instance: it has the
atmosphere of a village store, and loads of good choice, even in the booze
department. Perhaps particularly in the booze department, considering the
location…
And a few weeks ago the one on Tiree had English asparagus from
Gloucestershire, before it was on sale in most of Gloucestershire.
Of course I fully expect that all these excellently-stocked and
politely-staffed branches are losing money hand over fist, but it’s nice while
it lasts.
- June 17, 2013 at 11:28
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I have come to this blog on the recommendation of Slog whose opinions I
have come to respect possibly because they coincide with mine.
As this site
requires me to make two adjustments to the horizontal slider for every line of
text read, it has been a tedious experience,
I don’t need to get into
discussions about any physical defects of my sight or technicalities as how my
computer is arranged, suffice to say that I do not
have this problem 99% of
the time on my extensive travels on the web.
Could you not apply some
discipline to stop the text sprawling off the borders of my screen please?
- June 17, 2013 at 12:14
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I can see that you are using the four week old Firefox 21 as your
browser, with Windows XP – the bug fix https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833542 was
supposed to alleviate this problem for you, but there is nothing I can do
from my end which will help.
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June 17, 2013 at 17:12
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Likewise from the Slog, and likewise using FF21 – under Ubuntu
Linux.
Works perfectly well from my side of the screen, but when the
view size is increased (Ctrl& +) then it is possible to slide off the
edges of the screen.
Suggest Ctrl & – to reduce the size,
Golightly.
HTH
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June 17, 2013 at 18:17
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It’s been mentioned before, I the site has one or two fixed widths in
the css. Happy to help.
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June 20, 2013 at 11:56
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Thank you dear lady, for your most accurate diagnosis and the link for
the cure which I will try presently. The people at Mozilla were great when
they started. Now, they can’t leave well alone, it has taken two updates
and a lot of my time to get Thunderbird back to a reasonable working
order, and now the button has dissappeared from the tab bar of Firefox.
Yes Chris also thank you,I use my &+/- is already more times than I
think it should be needed, and my FFox minimum font size does’nt work
either. But aren’t we getting off topic for this site?
- June 16, 2013 at 23:41
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I worked for the co-op when I first left school and the amount of waste and
theft was huge, you could pick something to be stolen to order! the managers
couldn’t care less as they were all in it as well. In later years my husband
did an inventory for them for a new IT system and found three brand new cars
were missing, that was written off to ‘wastage’ this co-op had a lot of
underground storage tunnels and he found one elderly man there. on asking what
his job was he was told it was looking after the ration books! this was around
1969/70. They were always more expensive which covered the ‘dividend’
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June 17, 2013 at 09:36
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Carol’s, and other’s, quaint recollections of ToyTown Co-ops.
Pale into paltry insignificance compared to our terror tales of the most
criminal square mile in Europe.
London’s BIG Bang City with special police force, to keep snoopers out
and the BIG Banksters in power.
- June 16, 2013 at 21:32
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The Co-op delivered the milk daily to our family home when I was a child.
My Mother had a divi number, which I still remember. Provident cheques and
vouchers could be exchanged at the Co-op and this was a popular way of buying
on tick. Then of course many used the Co-op funeral services as they do today.
I wouldn’t dream of shopping at the Co-op now if our local is any thing to go
by. The products aren’t very good but the prices are rather high. It seems
very popular that supermarkets sell insurance and have banks these days but I
would rather stay with traditional banks. I heard that the Co-op would be
taking over some Lloyds banks. I find that when shops start a bank or
insurance it’s all a bit faddish – a sprat to catch a mackerel affair. They
start off with wonderful offers and end up with higher rates than traditional
services. Still no such thing as a free lunch or even a crumb from the
table.
- June 16, 2013 at 20:18
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We got out of the Coop bank thirty years ago when they took our mortgage
payment from our account twice on the same day. We’re still waiting for a
valid apology or, better, some valid compensation. Tossers.
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June 16, 2013 at 19:36
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Co-operate, co-operate ?
Mag’s failed mantra was ‘compete compete’ and she rightly stated, her
greatest achievment, ‘New Labour’.
1980s Fraud Market US.Repugnant/UK.Tory pawns – NuLab 1997-2010, R ot In P
ieces.
The Right wing sub-prime Fraud Market Wall St and bent-Big City ’08 toxic
crash, emits global fallout for the forseebale future.
No surprise all ‘co-operatives’ are off – for a while.
- June 16, 2013 at 18:19
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Some Cooperatives seem to work well – The Wine Society, for example. Maybe
this happens when the Directorate is largely members doing it as sharing
responsibility rather than for fees and political honours?
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June 16, 2013 at 13:01
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Personally, I have long felt that the principles of the co-operative
movement paved the way to more human approaches to living and working. I have
been engaged in some areas of my life with co-operative type establishment-
even supporting my local branch of THE COOP’ decadess ago, even though its
prices were higher.
But as now apparent its business model has not moved with the times and
this happened to my local shop, which caused job losses to those who had
worked long with it. But what shocked me was later, ‘more upbeat’ and
rebranded Cooperative Society shops opened not too far away from the old. It
did not make sense to me at all…but what does nowadays.
Orwell’s from ‘Pig to man and man to pigs’ reflection in Animal Farm always
resounds whichever sector one looks at. Good men do loose their public halo’s
and sometimes supposedly bad men can surprise us all. Welcome to the modern
world and human race… from which no one can escape … hell has no easy way
out.
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June 16, 2013 at 12:32
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A 30% haircut would be, if normal rules applied, be highly optimistic; the
bond price would go instantkly to 40% of face, and then default. I agree with
Mudplugger; it is ironic that the most successful adaptation of the ‘Rochdale
model’ was in Scandinavia and, I believe, still exists as ‘Elanto’ in
Finland.
But none of that bears any resemblance to the nonsense which the Co-op
represents today; at one stage they had 30% of the UK grocery market, for
example, got carried away and virtually crashed. It is currently one of the
most expensive food outlets anywhere. I am told (but do not know) that they
are competent at burying people. So, a sacred cow, but more resembling the
usual by-product – bovine arse-gravy.
The banking arm views itself with an ineffable smugness, no doubt advised
by the odious, beady-eyed PIRC, a bunch of unreconstructed morons who advise
on ‘ethical investments’, by which they mean ‘politically correct’
investments.
Like burying people.
Which seems appropriate…
- June 16, 2013 at 11:40
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The service in my local Co-op supermarket is not at all slothful and
ignorant. On the contrary, the staff are pleasant, friendly and efficient.
Many of them have worked in this store through several changes of
ownership, the Co-op being the most recent.
The selection of foods is good for a modestly sized supermarket, and better
than under previous owners.
- June 16, 2013 at 10:18
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Given the slothful, rude and ignorant “service” available in my local co-op
and the way I was cut up on traffic by one of their trucks yesterday, (of
course he was far too inportant to join the queue like everyone else, he had
to sail past everyone and then use his bulk to push in at the front), I hope
the entire thing goes spectacularly and suddenly bust. They will have not one
iota of sympathy from me.
The good side effect from that will hopefully be the administrators calling
all their outstanding loans thus bankrupting the Labour Party and ridding us
all of that vile blood sucker in our midst.
As for any of the bond holders – they will learn a sound lesson about the
nature of the basic economic relationship between risk and return. They
deserve nothing more.
- June 16, 2013 at 10:10
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Anna, whenever someone mentions Co-Op, I’m always reminded of their most
famous Scottish advert from the 1960s: ‘Mrs McGregor gets her oats at the
Co-op.’
Perhaps it’s not only Mrs McGregor who’s been screwed by them.
- June 16, 2013 at 09:40
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A sad end to a noble notion. From its Rochdale origins, the Co-op movement
provided wholesome products at fair prices to hard-pressed workers, with the
additional bonus of the bi-annual ‘divi’ as an in-built savings scheme.
But
once it had to swim in the same waters as the supermarket sharks, that model
started to crumble. It became driven by the same imperatives, despite any
apparent ethical labelling, but without the basic instincts of a shark. Add to
that its historic links to working-class politics, hence the Labour Party
connections, and more conflict of purpose emerges: it’s trying to hunt with
both the hare and the hounds.
It may be too late to decide which way it
jumps, but its failure to decide that over the past 50 years has probably
consigned it to extinction. We can already see the Co-op locally quietly
divesting itself of peripheral businesses as it panics for survival (it
scraped £30m by flogging a successful car dealership around here last month)
but that fire-sale approach won’t ever be enough to correct such a basically
flawed business model.
A sad end perhaps, but inevitable.
But what then
for sourcing the Labour Party’s permanent need for easy cash ? I suspect
they’ll suddenly become noisy promoters of state-funding of political parties
– with the Co-op finished and the Trade Union channel drying up, there’s a
limit to even Alan Suger’s fiscal gratitude for his reward peerage, so it’s
the only way the party could survive.
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