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Charles Clarke lectures on loyalty

Friday, January 8th, 2010

I discovered today that Charles Clarke knows a thing or two about loyalty in the Labour Party. In 1995 he was criticising John Smith (who died three years earlier) for a lack of loyalty to Neil Kinnock.

Disclosure: I don’t like Charles Clarke. I met him only once, in 2003. I was investigating political party financing for the ippr whilst he was chairman of the Labour Party. We had a series of meetings arranged, all of which were cancelled, some whilst I was on my way to the meeting. When we finally met, at a small cross-party seminar I organised, he arrived (late) only to launch straight into an attack on us. It was unpleasant and in stark contrast to the way I was treated by every other senior politician I met. But, as ever in politics, I like and admire some people who like Charles Clarke. So he might not be all bad.

Charles Clarke has been branded by some as a traitor to the Labour Party. His frequent attacks on Gordon Brown have irritated party members in Norwich and fellow MPs. I actually think Charles Clarke has good reason to attack Gordon Brown, given the way that Brown appears to have dealt with him whilst he was secretary of state for education. But, as I’ve said elsewhere, now is not the time for these debates.

So I was entertained to spot the following report in the archives of the Guardian from 1 December 1995:

Kinnock aide (Charles Clarke) says (John) Smith ‘disloyal’

by Patrick Wintour

Neil Kinnock’s most senior adviser during his time as Labour leader has . . . conceded that the late John Smith was disloyal to Mr Kinnock before the 1992 general election.

Mr Clarke says of John Smith:

“Some people alleged that John Smith had a game plan to replace Neil as leader of the party. That was put to me by a lot of people. I in fact discussed it with John at one point. I believed that was entirely untrue.

“However, I have to say that after the 1992 election, one or two people in very senior positions indicated that John had been talking in a disloyal way.”

In other news that day, England were playing South Africa and were struggling after an opener scored 100.

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Banks win the battle but lose the war

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

The Supreme Court of England and Wales has ruled that banks do not have to repay fees charged to customers for overdrafts and other account penalties. The news is a blow to the many campaigners who have been using the internet to share advice and reduce legal costs by developing pro-forma techniques to reclaim bank charges. Eventually the case ended up with the Office of Fair Trading after a super-complaint from consumer rights organisations Which? and Citizens Advice Bureau. But also a relief given the sabre-rattling threats of universal cash machine charges. The banks have won the battle, essentially on a technicality: that the OFT did not have the power to determine whether the charges were unfair.

However, long before this battle was concluded, the banks had lost the war. Even before the credit crunch banks had become significantly unpopular due to the ‘unfairness’ of charging customers for getting into financial difficulty. Banks were thought by many to be acting in an under-hand, dishonest fashion. Some high street banks began the dispute by allowing the legal cases to run their course in lower courts, and then failing to challenge them – resulting in (relatively) small payments to bolshie customers. Some banks (eg. Nat West) then changed tack and threatended to close the accounts of those who complained.

In my view, the banks’ position was undermined not by their tactics in the dispute but by the fundamental lack of honesty in the relationship with customers. Let’s be clear: free banking is a chimera. For too long high street banks have been providing a service (which in many cases has been excellent, improving and innovative) to customers without a charge and pretending that there are no costs involved. All the while they cut costs, outsourced administrative functions, closed branches, without ever seriously examining whether a different relationship could be struck up with customers. And as newspapers are finding out, if you tell people something costs nothing for long enough, you lose a sense of value in your business.

The distance that this helped create between bank and customer is further exacerbated by the lack of serious competition on the high street – even before the credit crunch brought a new round of consolidation – meaning that customers do not feel as though there is much choice as to who you bank with. When I was making the decision, as a young teenager, it was between Nat West’s free CD walkman and Lloyds TSB’s free camera (35 mm, not digital) – hardly a decision which promotes responsible financial management. And the sense that the banks had all the power, and none of the accountability to customers, eventually ended up with the foolish speculation which brought about the credit crunch.

The banks may have won this particular battle but they have lost the respect of customers and will struggle to win it back. It’s a market ripe for a new entrant to break the mould.

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Halifax home insurance? Cancel it

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

If you have a Halifax home insurance policy I suggest you cancel it because if your experience is anything like mine, you’ll feel robbed that you ever paid them a penny.

I lost my wedding ring. It felt awful. For days afterwards I’d go to touch my ring only briefly to re-experience the sensation of losing it. The only saving grace was that I lost it on my way home from a drunken night out – with my wife. imagine what she would have said if I was out with the lads.

I decided to claim on my insurance policy because I really wanted a replacement, it’s a piece of symbolism to which I’m attached, because I really wanted the same, distinctive ring and because I couldn’t afford to replace it. Thankfully, I had been paying a little extra to cover loss of our wedding rings – and extra still for accidental loss of valuable items. Or so I thought.

I phoned Halifax – or whatever it’s called now – to report it. The assistant was perfectly helpful, even if the website did advertise a disconnected phone number and even though I had to key-in my policy number and give the same details again to the person who took the call.

The next stage of the process was dealing the the loss adjusters – creatively called the Loss Management Group. They were particularly efficient and it was good to be able to email them my documents. Two days later they called me with their decision: the ring had increased in value by 10% in the two and a half years since I got married.

And then for the bad news which felt so unfair that I can only conclude that you don’t get a fair deal from the Halifax:

1. I can only buy a replacement ring from their jewellers of preference: H Samuel or Ernest Jones. Except I bought my ring in Hatton Garden and neither of their jewellers sell my ring. The closest designs they offer are rings that two people I know have.

And of course neither jeweller sell a platinum male wedding ring for £1000 so I will have to pay more.

This is wrong on a matter of principle. I didn’t buy my insurance with H Samuel. I shouldn’t be forced to buy their products in return.

2. I have to pay the excess in cash, up front, before they will give me the gift voucher. Great for their cashflow, not for mine.

3. They will give me a cash settlement so I can buy the ring I want – rather than the ring they want me to have. But I would need to accept a 40% reduction – 60% including the excess – which would leave me in no position to buy a replacement.

And at the end of all of this, with someone else’s choice of wedding ring and paying an extra £250 for the privilege, the cost of my insurance will increase by 30% to reflect the loss of my no claims bonus.

I always found it hard to trust insurance companies – if you gained more than you paid they would go bust. But they can’t all be as bad as the Halifax policy.

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