2 whisper stories to end the week on this week:1. The newly minted state banks have meetings with their senior management every week now with Shriti Vadera (Minister for small business - I guess that is where the want the banks to go!) and a treasury team. These are not meetings the bankers' look forward too.
After the opening niceties it goes something along the lines of:
"How much F**cking money have you lent this week? Why aren't you lending more? What have you done about improving you capital ratios you f**cking imbeciles"
The shocked bankers sit and try to explain that the many contradictory orders cannot be followed. Surprisingly, they just get shouted down.
One week just after Christmas Lord Mandelson turned up. The meeting was more civilised. Mandy said I trust you all to do what you think is best, its is your business after all. He then said, of course there was another side to the deal and that '"from the moment I leave this room I am going to call you all C**ts to the media."
2. An Army General came to dinner with a friend and said he had had the top three MOD treasury mandarins down to see him during the week. They were doing the usual thing about budget cuts and overspend. When asked about what they future held they said they had no view at all of what would happen over the rest of 2009, but were sure that inflation would jump to over 6% in 2010 due to the monetary stimulus being injected into the economy.
