Mark Steel: Let's ask florists for a credit rating
Governments should be made to recite their policies in front of a panel on TV every Saturday
Mark Steel
Commentator and stand-up comedian Mark Steel has presented several radio and television programmes, and appeared on Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. In 2006 he published 'Vive La Revolution: A Stand-up History of the French Revolution', and in 2000 stood as a candidate in the London Assembly elections.
Wednesday 07 December 2011
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Here's my question about economics – why should it send countries into panic when the bankers make pronouncements about countries' credit ratings, as they did yesterday? You could choose any layer of society at random and most people would trust them more than bankers, so it would make more sense if the BBC News started, "Private sector growth must be the priority for Europe, said the scouts today, although canoeists and wrestlers disagreed, and there was strong opposition from people with fetishes that involve celery. Robert Peston, what does this mean for the Government's inflation target?"
And banks aren't neutral observers, they're banks – the people who caused the mess. It's like someone who's wet themselves in a public building insisting they choose which mop the librarian fetches to clear up the puddle.
But the future of Europe has been entrusted to finance companies and institutions such as the IMF, and governments agree that the most crucial part of any strategy is to keep the financial markets happy. Otherwise, the government becomes helpless, as if they're stood by a cashpoint machine that tells them: "You have insufficient funds. Please contact the IMF for instructions."
So we might as well ask the IMF and banks to make all our decisions to start with, and not bother with the hassle of holding elections. We should at least make this process entertaining, and make governments recite their suggested policies in front of a panel from the financial markets, every Saturday night on ITV. Then someone from Goldman Sachs can say, "David and George you were MARVELLOUS, cutting pensions is delightful and, as you were shutting libraries, I could FEEL you growing. Next week, I'd like to see you try a little cut in the top rate of tax, just to show you can do it. I know you can do it with just a bit more practise. I'm giving you NINE."
Maybe the problem is, by some sort of coincidence, that all the people who run the financial institutions we have to keep content are rich. So it might be more democratic if the directors of these companies were chosen at random by lottery numbers. Seeing as they make all the decisions, it seems fair they should be run by a cross-section of the society affected by those decisions.
This would be much more representative of public feeling, as we were told on the news, say, "The head of Deloitte & Touche today gave his sternest warning yet on executive pay after studying the figures, saying 'HOW MUCH DID YOU SWIPE, YOU THIEVING GREEDY PARASITE, HOW MUCH, HOW BLOODY MUCH? YOU COULD BUY EVERYONE IN EUROPE A CURRY FOR THAT, YOU BURGLAR.' We're going over live to the Bank of England where the governor, Joyce the florist from Sheffield, is about to give her reaction to this statement in a press conference."
- 1 Letters: Round up all the usual grammar school lobbyists
- 2 Mary Dejevsky: Why the political left should adopt the 'flat tax'
- 3 Adrian Hamilton: Next stop for Europe should be Hollande paying a visit to Athens
- 4 Catherine MacLeod: A good 'spad' is trusted by the minister – and speaks for him
- 5 Leading article: The Prime Minister has questions to answer, too
- 6 Leveson Sketch: The QC damned – with great praise
- 7 Laurie Penny: Why do so many men harass women on the streets?
- 8 The Daily Cartoon
- 9 Owen Jones: If socialists really did run the show, working people would benefit
- 10 The dark side of Dubai
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 3 Society: The only way is Finland
- 4 Catcalls, whistles, groping: the everyday picture of sexual harassment in London
- 5 Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?
- 6 Owen Jones: If socialists really did run the show, working people would benefit
- 7 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 8 African monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
- 9 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
- 10 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
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