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I thank Dr Alf for reblogging the Economost article entitled: “Britain’s economy: How is it really doing?” and asking the following open questions:

1. Do you agree that commercial departments of banks are full of bureaucrats, with no knowledge of their customers nor their businesses and very little authority to back their judgement?

2. How do you suggest that the BoE and the Chancellor stimulate growth in UK businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses?

   Here are my responses:

The answer to Dr Alf’s first question must be a resounding yes.

The old Captain Mainwaring (Based on the Dad’s Army television character), style bankers who knew their personal and business customers intimately have all gone to the corporate graveyard, having effectively been made redundant more than 30 years ago.

In the days when it was possible for a small business owner to talk about “floorboard money” or use a crowbar like gesture to signal that there were more assets than the accounts showed, the old style bank managers were masters of realpolitik and could exercise seasoned judgement.

Now, with points system scoring and HMRC cracking down on little people whilst leaving people like Vodaphone, Eon, Arcadia Group PLC, Glaxo Smith Kline, BT PLC, Guardian Media Group PLC, Tesco PLC alone, we have a situation in which SMEs are denied credit and put through the HMRC “olive press” for even minor indiscretions.

Dr Alf’s prescription, plus more export led growth, infrastructure bonds, more enterprise and the active encouragement of wealthy foreign investors is the way forward coupled with a cessation of all overseas aid including the £1 billion gbp we have given to Nigeria to help them put a man into space and the £1 billion gbp a year we give to India, which they say they do not need.

Fracking, a concerted blitz on the costs of local and central government, building roads and nuclear power stations, and a switch from warmongering to airport capacity building and encouraging foreign banks to compete with our moribund High Street Clearers would also help.

The Economist is right to take the Coalition to task for allowing commercial lending to be strangled whilst pouring money into the UK housing market to make consumers feel good just before the election.

John Gelmini

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