Monday 24 September 2012

Vince's crackpot idea of the day

From The Guardian:

George Osborne has agreed to set aside £1bn to establish a British business bank to help small- and medium-sized enterprises, Vince Cable will announce on Monday.

In what Liberal Democrats are hailing as one of the major announcements of their conference, the business secretary will say that the new bank could leverage up to £10bn to help businesses struggling to find funds from high-street banks.


Just like with Nick Clegg's "give your children your pension to help them onto the property ladder" idea, words fail.

FFS, the sub-plot of the most recent episode of The Thick Of It was that two ministers set up exactly such a small business bank, but that was supposed to be satire.

9 comments:

Macheath said...

I'm starting to wonder whether the LibDems should just cut out the middleman and elect Armando Iannuci as their leader.

Sarton Bander said...

The best reason to borrow would be to defer tax!

So you'd be borrowing from the state, in order to pay the state the amount they extort.

Anonymous said...

Well, Vince was never all that bright really, was he?

Mark Wadsworth said...

McH, sounds like fun. They could even make a docu-soap out of it.

SB, that's the general idea. A sane person would say "Let's just cut small business tax by £2 billion".

AC, it would appear not. But all the parties recommend this sort of thing.

A K Haart said...

Another puzzle - I don't see the voter appeal.

Sarton Bander said...

>I don't see the voter appeal.

SOMETHING must be done.
THIS is SOMETHING.
Therefore will will do THIS.

Lola said...

Aaaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh......

(crouches in corner, head in hands, sobbing with frustration and rage)

benj said...

I wonder if they'll give a cheap loan to a fledgling property company? My business model has pretty good statistics to back it up.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AKH, good point, me neither.

SB, I think the real reason will be stupider than that.

L, it'll be safe to come out again in... no it won't actually, just stay there and keep the radio and TV turned off.

BJ, good idea, seriously, write in and ask.