Loan Shirks

The banking sector has taken an endearingly Liberal Democrat attitude to Project Merlin, casually ditching any inconvenient pledges and hoping Daveybloke's Cuddlies will love them for it. I cannot imagine what might have given them that idea, but the banks' lending to small and medium-sized businesses has fallen about eleven per cent short of the rather pathetic obligations which George the Progressively Regressive and his chums stroked the fat cats into accepting three months ago. The banks blamed the small and medium-sized businesses for refusing to take out loans at rates which they cannot afford. The banks didn't get us where we are today by being prudent and living within their means, and they clearly see no reason why anyone else should do so either, provided the taxpayers are obliging enough to carry the can. We're all in it together, after all.

Daveybloke said that it would be "a bit hasty" to imagine that the banks have failed to live up to their side of the bargain just because the banks' side of the bargain has not been lived up to; but he intimated that if matters did not improve he would be forced to consider doing nothing much in a rather less casual manner than heretofore. Daveybloke's charity towards those who don't keep their promises and can't count is, I suppose, understandable enough: Daveybloke said he wouldn't cut the NHS, went into coalition with Nick Clegg and appointed Michael Gove as Education Secretary. Anyhow, if the banks don't modify their behaviour pretty sharpish, Daveybloke may even be forced, as with his promises on forming the greenest government ever, to commit his successors to doing something about it.