Interesting day of research (always for the book) and many thanks to Ian Fraser, Tom Harper and Richard Brooks, for pointing me in some interesting directions, especially with reference to my recent blogs.

I started my new blog site with some details about the HBOS rights issue and the Lloyds/HBOS Merger, which, after reading the BoE report on the ELA given to HBOS and RBS in 2008 does, regrettably, seem to have been a rather unfortunate ‘con’ (I just can’t find a more PC word for it) on the shareholders of Lloyds and HBOS and also on the tax payer. I can say that, in the circumstances, I fully appreciate the Tripartite Authorities were definitely ‘over a barrel’ at the time but, all the same, the losers, as always, were the little people. All of us little people who now live with such austere conditions, that hundreds of thousands of people in Britain now rely on food banks:

A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before. The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors but that there was a “shocking” 51% rise in clients to established food banks. It said benefit payment delays were the main cause. In a letter to ministers, more than 500 clergy say the increase is “terrible”. The government said there was no evidence of a link between welfare reforms and the use of food banks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27032642

Paul has been out all day helping someone with a long running case against HBOS. When he came home, he asked if there were any interesting e-mail or tweets. I said Tom Harper tweeted me an article by Mark Kleinman about: The Chancellor has ruled out a sale of Lloyds shares to the public ahead of the next general election, Sky News can reveal.

I said to Paul (and I said on twitter) I didn’t think this was wise. If I was the Chancellor, I would off load those shares asap. As always, Paul pointed out the folly of my logic. I have just posted a document suggesting the lack of transparency over the HBOS/RBS ELA and the HBOS-Lloyds issue was, potentially, out of order and maybe even fraudulent. Imagine – the Government sell the shares in Lloyds now and then, down the road (and before the election) a scandal – any scandal – breaks about criminal conduct by the senior management of Lloyds Bank or its sick puppy HBOS, that causes the share price of Lloyds Banking Group to drop just after thousands of people have bought shares? Add that to what has already happened. Catastrophe. It’s not impossible in my view.

I think Tom, like Paul, has considered this possibility but me? Well I was so deeply immersed in other research, I didn’t add 1 + 1 up. So well done Mr Osborne, you clearly are wiser than I thought.

Actually, what I was concentrating on was the FRC. Following on from my blog yesterday about the appointment, as Chairman, of Sir Win Bischoff, first to the FRC and then to JP Morgan Europe, ME and Asia, I received two interesting articles from Ian Fraser on the topic. One article was about the extraordinary way in which the FRC had dropped its investigation into BAE Systems (another favourite of mine – and Tom’s http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-the-cameron-crony-the-private-jet-company-and-a-crash-landing-that-cost-taxpayers-100m-9350090.html ) and the article also said:

The FRC has form when it comes to letting ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms — Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PWC — off the hook. On April 11th, The Times’s Alex Spence revealed that the Financial Reporting Council had decided against probing ‘Big Four’ firms’ pre-crash audits of UK banks, simply because it wanted an easy life.

“There was a lack of will,” one well-placed insider told The Times. “There was a general reluctance to get into it. It would just be too disruptive, too damaging.”

The FRC has yet to make clear whether it is going to bother to launch a specific probe of KPMG’s role as auditor of the disastrous UK bank HBOS in 2001-08. It is apparently sitting on its hands while it waits to see the outcome of the FSA’s whitewash report into the Edinburgh-based bank’s failure. http://www.ianfraser.org/britain-is-fast-turning-into-a-banana-republic-wilfully-blind-to-corruption/

The other article ian alerted me to was one he wrote for The Sunday Times. I can’t read it all because I can’t afford to subscribe (thanks HBOS/LBG) but I trust Ian enough to know it is entirely relevant to my issues about Sir Win and the FRC:

Sir Steve Robson, one of seven RBS non-executive directors to be purged last month, is facing calls to resign as non- executive director of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

If Robson remains in his post, critics suggest the FRC could lose credibility. At RBS he was partly responsible for one of the largest bank collapses in UK history.

“The whole civil service ethos is that Caesar’s wife is above reproach,” said Robert Bertram, a corporate lawyer with experience as a non-executive director of listed companies, who served as a member of the Competition Commission.

“Whether or not Robson, a very distinguished public servant, has made his own position untenable, it seems the FRC itself has made it untenable …..http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/article156107.ece

All serious food for thought from my point of view and the icing on the cake was an article Richard Brooks sent me from Private Eye:

So, an interesting and worrying day. I keep thinking I have discovered important and interesting information. But of course the real ‘investigative journalists’ – and ian, Tom and Richard are three of the best – already know a lot of what I’ve discovered, they’ve published it and, the powers that be have ignored it – so I’m in good company.

Last bit of interesting news I got from my research today, was from the website of 33 Chancery Lane, the Chambers of  John Black QC who is representing the Crown in the Operation Hornet case. Interestingly, while the CPS have not updated their version of events on their website, which refers to 8 defendants and losses of £35M in the Reading fraud, John Black QC has a more updated version:

Operation Hornet (2013-2014) – advising Attorney General, CPS and Thames Valley Police on prosecution of bankers at leading financial institution and other businessmen for corruption, money laundering and fraudulent trading. The forthcoming trials concern an alleged £245m fraud.

As I said, an interesting day.