Financial turmoil
Parliament returns today from its "summer" recess to the same drumbeat which dogged politicians throughout the party conference season: financial turmoil. The this morning, despite the US Congress voting for the Bush bank bailout because the markets are worried about Europe, which is now swept up in the financial contagion.
The leader's of Europe's big economies met in Paris on Saturday but it looks as if they could have saved their carbon foot prints. They rejected any EU-wide response to the financial turmoil along American lines but tut-tutted loudly about Ireland (and Greece) going its own way. The loudest tut-tutter was Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; but when she returned to Berlin she did exactly what the Irish had done and gave a state guarantee of all German bank deposits held by individuals. No wonder the markets have concluded there will be no co-ordinated EU response.
Back in Blighty we're still trying to grapple with the financial turmoil and the news that Peter Mandleson has buried the hatchet with Gordon Brown (whether he's buried it in the PM's back only time will tell). On the show today, we'll be discussing whether the cabinet reshuffle has neutralised threats from within his own party (the odds must surely be on Mr Brown surviving until the next election) and whether the PM really has the right people and policies to deal with the financial crisis.
The new Brown economic war cabinet -- -- meets this morning though nobody is sure what it will do or if it will have any power. Perhaps the PM thinks it important just to be seen doing something in these troubled times. But demands for new responses are crowding in on him daily, with Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark now guaranteeing all bank deposits. There is also pressure on him to use the government to help rebuild the banks' shattered balance sheets with taxpayers' money, taking a (temporary) state share in the banks in return, as the Swedes did successfully in response to their banking crisis almost two decades ago.
We'll look at that idea too. The PM insists the government can deal with problems on a piecemeal basis in this crisis; but he's coming under pressure now to unveil a comprehensive strategy.
Also on the show today - Boris Johnson chairs his first meeting of London's Metropolitan Police Authority as the Black Police Authority tells ethnic minority recruits to boycott the force because of what it says is the "hostile and racist situation" at the Met. We'll have the latest on that, including the Mayor's new investigation into racism in the Met.
And as Formula 1 boss Max Mosley goes to the European Court of Human Rights to try to change the law over newspapers publishing damaging personal stories, we'll be asking the former editor of the News of the World whether the UK needs a new privacy law to keep newspapers in check. All that from noon today on ´óÏó´«Ã½2 here on the Daily Politics.
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