Phew. Well it looks like things are more or less ok now, and like green shoots of economic recovery, so SBM recovers from a minor technical blip. Sorry it’s been clunky the last day or so, it’s mega irritating. What’s more irritating is that you guys have been without important newsy offerings. Do you know what are the top shared stories on BBC right now? In pictures: Budgie hassles kitten to play, and Surfer rescues drowning kangaroo. WTF. Some real news from “Teh Newscat” after the jump.
BT Cuts another 15,000 jobs. Could this be because they are shit?
So BT (British Telecom), the largest and oldest telecoms provider in the UK is due to cut 15,000 jobs this year after posting an annual loss of £134m. This 15,000 job cut has come after BT cut a further 15,000 jobs last year. That’s quite a chop. I’m not remotely happy about a large number of people losing their jobs. But BT itself? Fuck it, if there is any worthy victim of the recession, it’s them.
RBS. Mishandled? Whatever do you mean?
So some Treasury Committee report has critisised City Minister Lord Myners’ handling of the RBS clusterfuck. You know, the one when they reported the biggest UK corporate loss in history. The report stated that he should have given RBS a “clearer, stronger direction” that failure was not to be rewarded. It went on to say that pay policies had let to “a lethal combination of reckless and excessive risk-taking”. No. Fucking. Shit. Please, HM Treasury in your next report can you take some time to explain what gravity does, because we’re all dying to know.
MPs expenses.
I’m really at odds with just reeling off a load of meaningless facts and figures (world: like you normally do?) but there’s just so much that the media is chucking out about how evil this expenses business is. Do you know another large group if influential people with expense accounts? JOURNALISTS. Anyway, here’s a rundown of today’s new pin-up figures of this whole debarcle, from, whom, but the BBC:
• Elliot Morley, a Labour former environment minister, was suspended from the parliamentary Labour party after he admitted claiming £16,800 in mortgage payments on his constituency home 20 months after repaying the loan. Morley referred himself to John Lyon, the parliamentary standards commissioner.
• Justice minister Shahid Malik was revealed to have claimed thousands of pounds in taxpayer allowances on his second home while renting his main home. Malik had run up the highest expenses claim of any MP, claiming second home allowances – £66,827 over three years – on his house in London. He rented his main home in his Dewsbury constituency at a discounted rate of less than £100 a week.
• The veteran Conservative MP Andrew MacKay resigned as senior parliamentary adviser to Cameron after jointly claiming £170,000 over four years on properties with his wife, fellow Tory MP Julie Kirkbride. Cameron described his behaviour as completely unacceptable after it was revealed that MacKay designated Kirkbride’s constituency flat in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, as his main residence, allowing him to claim the annual £24,006 additional costs allowance on their joint London home. Kirkbride designated this property as her main residence, allowing her to make claims on her constituency flat.
Big deal. Let us please sort the frigging economy out first.
Repossessions up 50%
So the Council of Mortgage Lenders came out today with some not unsurprising figures. A total of 12,800 homes were repossessed by lenders in the first three months of the year, 50% more than in the first quarter of last year. The number of borrowers who have fallen behind on their mortgage repayments is also rising, with 265,100 households now at least three months in arrears. I really don’t have much to say about this to be honest, I can’t imagine that it’s going to shock anyone. Of course, there are no such problems at Scumbag Manor. I’m fine. Did you hear that, homeless family? Fine.
