Bank policy 'clarification' confuses further

WHEN a Downing Street spokesman is forced to clarify a statement made by a minister on an important matter of policy it is indubitably a sign that the government in disarray.

So it was that only a matter of hours after an interview in which City minister Lord Myners refused to rule out the possibility of an Obama-style levy on the banks, No 10 was forced into the embarrassing position of trying to pretend that he had said nothing of the sort.

Yet despite this Humpty Dumpty-esque attempt to make words mean what they want them to mean, Downing Street's explanation that Lord Myners meant that he wanted a debate on the "Tobin tax" on financial transactions only added to the confusion.

Not only has the minister contradicted Chancellor Alistair Darling, who in The Scotsman last week ruled out a US-style levy, but he also now wants to revive the transactions tax proposed by Gordon Brown but opposed by the US.

So where stands the Prime Minister and his government when it comes to penalising the banks the taxpayer has been forced to prop up to the tune of billions of pounds? After yesterday's events, who knows?

The American author Jack Kerouac once wrote that he had nothing to offer expect confusion and while the context may be very different, it is a phrase that could be applied to the government's chaotic and shambolic policy on the banks. There is nothing more dangerous than dithering.