The audacity of Hush Puppies
Updated on 19 January 2009
As the US prepares for a new president, Kenneth Clarke returns to front-bench duties on a day of City gloom, writes Alex Thomson for Snowmail.
Greetings, all. Alex T here with our proposed line-up for Channel 4 News tonight at seven.
Hail the Hush Puppies! The leader of The Jovial Tenancy is back at the front. Yes, Ken Clarke is back giving back-to-back interviews about his return to frontbench duties. Curious how I've chosen to write that bit before the Son of Bailout bit from the government. But that's Ken Clarke for you. Love or hate him, the man does have the kind of presence which comes over as a light in the gathering gloom.
Which, my friends, just got a whole bunch more gathered. The City does not appear to buy into Gordon Brown's Son of Bailout strategy - I say "son of" as you'll recall last autumn's 37 billion, which was supposed to put the lid on the banking crisis for good and all. Well, if this second massive intervention is aimed at bolstering confidence in the banks, then the City just blew a loud raspberry.
Bank shares took another hammering today. Royal Bank of Scotland led the plunge, having today announced losses and write-offs of bad investments over the past year that amount to the worst losses in UK corporate history. RBS saw its shares plummet as they lost a staggering two-thirds of their value.
The RBS boss also admitted today that full nationalisation of the bank had been discussed with the government, although he said that it was rejected by all involved. The bank is largely in public ownership already, with the government's stake rising from 58 per cent to almost 70 per cent.
The crux of this new bailout package seems to be aimed at giving the banks the confidence to lend more because the loans will be largely insured against loss, in effect, by you and I, the taxpayer. The government says the measures are vital to protect jobs and keep the economy moving. Ken Clarke doesn't think it'll fly. The City is pretty unconvinced too, it appears. Others say it's a very, very, very expensive admission that the first bailout flopped.
We will unpick what's on offer here, and ask why we should have confidence in it, and what is it about the previous billions that were thrown at a bailout that don't yet seem to have done the trick
All the rest of the day's main stories: why there's another big reason to do some serious beachcombing on the south coast of England after the latest winter Channel mayday call; the MoD has named the latest British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan; and it's confirmed the flight recorders aboard the Hudson river airbus prove it was a bird strike that caused the freak double-engine shutdown.
But with no apologies, the main focus tonight is on the banks - or what's left of them.
And from Jon Snow in Washington
We are but 24 hours from America's first black president and what feels here much more the world's first black president - although, of course, he isn't.
Vast numbers of foreigners have come in, including, as I've mentioned, no small band of Britons. A voice called out to me yesterday on the street amidst thousands pouring into the Bruce Springsteen concert. "Mr Snow! Mr Snow! I'm a policeman from Manchester!"
I turned round and here was this very tall Afro-Caribbean man, and we immediately got talking. He is a constable from Greater Manchester Police, has been in the force 19 years, and he has come here because he longs to be part of this great change. He was clearly emotionally moved to be among the streams of humanity moving along the streets of Washington. He'd found an American policeman's family to stay with, and I'll be talking to him tomorrow on Channel 4 News.
But that's only one insight. There are so many more. The preparations, the security, even the lavatories, are here on a vast scale. Good old America! They've never liked discussing lavatories - they have always been "bathrooms". But here, the portable ones have amazing names like Porta Potty and Don's Johns.
The excitement you can very nearly touch. And the numbers on the streets now, in these continuing sub-zero temperatures and repeated flurries of snow, are mounting. Standing in a courtyard below my office, I can see Newt Gingrich, former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, talking on a mobile phone from behind a pillar.
Tonight on Channel 4 News Sarah Smith is out among both the preparations and the issues that confront Obama. And I have been on the trail of Obama's obsession with Abraham Lincoln. He is everywhere in this inauguration, even looking down over Springsteen's shoulder at yesterday's mammoth concert.
I've been talking to Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, a completely brilliant book that gives great insight into Lincoln himself and into America's historic struggle with slavery, civil war and the establishment of the United States. It's the book that Obama said that, next to the Bible, he would want to guide him in his administration.
Ms Kearns Goodwin has spoken with Obama on several occasions in the last six months, not least as Obama was building his own "cabinet of rivals". Tonight we have an interview with her in which she gives unprecedented insights into what makes Obama tick as a leader.
