Final days for the McBroons?

It’s looking like the final days of the McBroons as they scramble from saving face in the hot Afghan desert and onto snowy Copenhagen to save the world from climate change. As they have got so little right in their 12 years of mis-rule, few would give them any odds on pulling something useful out of the fire at this late stage of their decline.

McBroon and his cohorts are allowing the busted banks to pay bonuses and fund the Krafty take-over of a British chocs company; Spend money faster than they can print it on some days, while cheating on promised pension increases; providing vital helicopters after five years of military casualties while whitewashing over the vainglorious Iraq invasion… offering Third World ragamuffins billions to squander on staying green while giving nowt to Britain’s greenest van maker - who’s now gone bust.

It’s a fairy tale world the McBroons have created for themselves, but surely without a happy fairy tale ending… Hans Christian Andersen lived in Copenhagen and like McBroon he liked to travel around the world compiling imaginative stories to tell, one of which, “Only a Fiddler”, might become McBroon’s tomb-top testimonial when judged by history?

The parlous and changed state of Great Britain PLC, now Lorded over by the mortgage fiddler with more titles than Idi Amin, Saddam Hussain, Robert Mugabe and Hazel Blears, is getting many people looking for a better country to move to.

A place where their meagre pensions will go further; where the sun shines 300 days of the year and their neighbours will be friendly and more respectful in their safer neighbourhoods. The nearest place is Spain, where they can now find a nice house for less than the average price of a flat in the UK.

Spain’s in the recession too and in trouble because they built too many second homes to cater for the never-ending demand from discontented Brits, bored Benelux bods and over-rich Russians. As Spanish banks were not allowed to stray into the twilight zones of dodgy lending and toxic assets they are still around to advance good mortgages to sensible borrowers.

As McBroon has done nothing to support Sterling, the pound has crashed against the Euro, making life difficult for Brits paying mortgages in Spain. Some have had their Spanish homes repossessed, but most will go without the Sunday roast before giving up their splendid lifestyle on their favourite Costa.

In praise of banks in Spain

The posting in this blog five days ago that suggested Spanish banks were safe from the financial storms raging around the world raised some eyebrows among the so-called “experts”.

We revealed how the Bank of Spain had successful banned Spanish banks from paddling in sub prime toxic waters and how the banks were currently enjoying what we dubbed a “mañana” moment of relaxation.

Indeed, smart Banco Santander even found time to mop-up a couple of UK bargains in the shape of Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley who had fallen on hard times due to their forays into the US sub-prime market. Santander now has 25 million customers in the UK and long-time customers of Abbey – an earlier acquisition - enjoy improved customer service due to more branches, more staff and fewer “offshore” call centre confusions. The old Abbey creaking data system has been replaced by Santander’s state of the art IT.

Other media have taken up this UK versus Spain theme and some national newspapers have praised the diversification of Santander with low exposure to property loans but good general business in Spain, Britain and Latin America.

One newspaper, the Financial Times has gone further, calling on central banks to ‘take lessons from Spain’. The British newspaper thinks that the Bank of Spain’s conservative policies have contributed to the fact that the Spanish financial system can now avoid the current storm.

That’s a relief for the many British families and investors still determined to buy a property in the land of sunshine, sandy beaches, sangria – and safe banking.