Geoffrey Boycott just reacted on Test Match Special (Radio 5 Sports Extra) to the announcement that Mervyn King will be the teatime guest:
The words of Saint Geoffrey: “Ask him why the bankers aren’t all in jail. Ask him this: if it’s private enterprise, how come when they make a profit, they get the money in their pocket, but when they make a loss, we all have to pay for it. The bankers should all be in jail.”
Boycott immediately replaced by Tuffers. I think Boycott should replace Vince Cable.
Boycott for all his strange views on many subjects is his own man and says what he means and means what he says, for which I respect him even when I disagree strongly with him.
And he has the huge advantage in this case of being absolutely right.
Oh would that there were a few like him in Parliament…
I’ve always thought you get better political commentary from sports than you do from the professional excuse merchants
My hat off to Geoff..
Excellent comment. Could also ask why socialism is good enough for the banksters, but is too good for everyone else. And what about the generous bonuses handed out in recent years that would more than cover the bailouts – why wasn’t a reserve kept?
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For that matter, why do farmers get to socialise their losses, and pocket their profits? Their dodgy practices spreads foot&mouth disease around, and who gets to pay for it? What’s particularly galling about that the public subsidises cattle/dairy farming even if they don’t use those products. Just like the general public underwrites losses of the banks, even though most people don’t do high-risk investment banking.
Excellent comment. Could also ask why socialism is good enough for the banksters, but is too good for everyone else. And what about the generous bonuses handed out in recent years that would more than cover the bailouts – why wasn’t a reserve kept?
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For that matter, why do farmers get to socialise their losses, and pocket their profits? Their dodgy practices spreads foot&mouth disease, BSE etc. around, and who gets to pay for it? What’s particularly galling is that the public subsidises cattle/dairy farming even if they don’t use those products. Just like the general public underwrites losses of the banks, even though most people don’t do high-risk investment banking.
As good an encapsulation of the problem as there is IMO
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He’ll be persona non grata with some powerful organisations for saying it though.
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For an impressive analysis of the meaning of ‘Public Debt’, debt audits and the experiences of South America I found this fascinating read.
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So who’ll whose for a similar audit of UK ‘Public Debt’?
Nice one Geoffrey. It will be interesting to see if the BBC lose him. If they do I doubt he’ll go quietly.
Hit for a six! Good on him! Sock it to ’em, Geoffrey! Give ’em the wood! Drown ’em in a butt of linseed oil! And damn bluudy right he is, too.
“if it’s private enterprise, how come when they make a profit, they get the money in their pocket, but when they make a loss, we all have to pay for it”
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He’s right, of course, but not original. It’s been said a lot in the past few months. On Twitter and elsewhere.
Of course, it’s been said for years. But the point is, he’s someone with a high and longlasting public profile and he broke the culture of deference, live on air. That’s where the power of this statement resides.
Anyone watching a few years back when he came up with the immortal words, live on air, of ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’? In reference to his ex-wife of course. Again, not original, but very amusing! True? :-0
“he’s someone with a high and longlasting public profile and he broke the culture of deference, live on air.”
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There must be no deference in Ireland then. It’s been said on air here, by all sorts of people. 🙂
Very well said by Geoff – and exactly what Noam Chomsky has been saying for decades (costs are nationalised, profits are privatised)
Yes, dreoilin, interesting indeed. But there is most certainly a culture of deference in esp. the BBC, etc. – in the UK. For example, saying that people ‘misled’ Parliament, instead of ‘they lied’. That is because the UK remains an imperialist entity and Ireland is not.
Brian Gerrish is on SKY Ch 200 looking at the Media Standards Trust.
And, yes, Boycott’s on the money literally.
Suhayl: Yes indeed, you can’t accuse someone of lying (particularly in Parliament). Some years back, Tam Dalyell was discussing the discrepancies between Thatcher’s account Argentina’s General Belgrano being destroyed and that of the submarine commander.
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“Was it the submarine commander, or the Prime Minister, who is lying?” Dalyell asked. After some uproar, and the speaker demanding he withdraw the unparliamentary language, he rephrased the question. “Was it the submarine commander, -OR- the Prime Minister, who is telling the truth?”
Goeff Boycott is a good cricketer and george best was a good footballer who does not deserve having an airport nnamed after him, both are wife beaters.
That said, he is right on this issue, the bankers are taking it, whether you are in the red or the black.
And what are they taking? money, an exchange measure of value for products or services, which is in itself valueless, the value is either in the product or in the service, they are merely reaping of both sides doing sweet FA.
Odd how the West has sacrificed a million lives on the altar of “anti-terrorism”.
While one of the biggest acts of financial terrorism – in fact the biggest bank heist in human history – not only resulted in obscene bonuses to the criminals, but now has, in effect, the rest of us borrowing what had been our own money from them. But I don’t suppose we’ll see the SAS invading any financial institutions, any time soon…
Frankly, another 10 years of corruption and public disillusion in UK Plc, and I reckon that – when it comes to violence – muslim extremists might well become the least of our problems.
The Bankers are living beyond our means!.
Suhayl, lighten up …
Suhayl is always very colourful Dreoilin. 🙂
Perhaps ‘decorum’ might have been a more appropriate term, actually, than ‘deference’. Both linguistic and public media decorum.
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You’re quite right, Dreoilin, sorry. To paraphrase from ‘I’m good and I’m getting better’, one might say that ‘I’m light and I’m getting lighter’ (!) Here, then, is the laughing policeman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI1nPd7hezM
Perhaps he worked for News International (!)
I feel humbled to have predicted Ruperts demise, once the biggest pension fund in America is not happy and some 911 victims, rumoured to be hacked, have the FBI looking at it, then this might just be the end off. News Corpse has laid itself open to multi million legal liabilities by their methods, they have set a bad example amongst many.
I think I shall follow young Nathan example, (he threw his mobile into Ramsgate harbour because he justd didn’t want to be available, got too many calls, what a chap)not only do they take the piss, our money, up the VAT and tax on energies, scare OAPs to deathover bills, now they suck the life out of grieving/vulnerable people by using their most personal messages to get their greedy kicks. Thats enough to make one want to shit into their vampire brains.
Compare & contrast Boycott & Aggers today; the words from Boycs quoted by Craig were directed at Jonathan Agnew just before the latter was due to interview Mervyn King in the tea interval. When the time came Aggers tentatively asked for King’s views on the current Euro bailout- and was put in his place by King, who said he’d discuss that subject with a specialist, and not some sports journo johnny (or words to that effect). Aggers thenceforth kept anything controversial completely off limits.
Boycott was of course spot-on; since the passing of Fred Trueman & the Alderman, Don Mosey, he is tolerated at TFS as the token blunt Yorkshireman- and long may he continue in that role if he dispenses pearls of wisdom such as as these.
Suhayl, I’m wondering who *didn’t* work for News International! I’m getting lighter too. 6lbs gone and 12 to go. Wish me luck. 🙂
Great stuff and good luck, Dreoilin!
Prince Andrew has ‘stepped down’ as Trade Envoy.
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uk.news.yahoo.com/prince-andrew-step-down-trade-envoy-101703575.html
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Not precisely on-topic, but still within the broad subject of financial corruption, criminality and the elites to which Boycott referred.
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Prince Andrew now has become a media liability for the Monarchy and its ongoing active role in all of this. It is likely that those who attempt to manage the public consciousness, nationally and internationally, on such matters want to foreground the ‘William and Kate’ product marketing campaign as projection of benign monarchical power. Prince Andrew, it seems, has come to resemble Mark Thatcher in the iconography of power.
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No-one ought to be fooled. It’s Coca-Cola: different bottles, same poison.
@Suhayl
Are you okay mate, I’m a bit worried about your mental state!
I think you need to go lie down in a dark room for a couple of days, you are clearly a very ill or disturbed person!
“Hit for a six! Good on him! Sock it to ‘em, Geoffrey! ”
This is Geoffrey (forward defensive) Boycott we are talking about.
He doesn’t know what a six is!
Geoffrey Boycott (born October 21, 1940) played 108 Test Matches & scored 8114 runs including 8 sixes. His batting average was 47.72.
I’ll leave you to work out the percentage of runns which came via that route.
Re Aggers he should have told Mervin King he would only talk about cricket to a specialist and the only reason he was invited in the box was because of his day job and that he should just “fuck off” (Is that okay Mod?]
Dreolin, well done, soon you will have to enter a room twice to be seen 🙂 are you going to treat us to a before and after picture here? only joking.
Paul, I know, I know, on the field Boycott was the most boring player imaginable – or could be, if he decided to be, which was quite often, it was a well-known tactic of his. That’s why he was usually first in the line-up, he’d just sap the opposition’s resolve and even that of the heavens until finally the deity of cricket decided they’d had enough and it began to rain…
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And you’re spot-on about what should have been said to King (instead of the grovel that seems to have accusred). I wish King had said what he said to Boycott (!)