Labour will change the law so that
banks can’t close a branch where
there is a clear local need, putting
their customers first.
A banker will close a branch where there is clear local need just so that he can cackle as he loses money, right?
Labour will change the law so that
banks can’t close a branch where
there is a clear local need, putting
their customers first.
A banker will close a branch where there is clear local need just so that he can cackle as he loses money, right?
FFS.
So the format is a “little red book”. And they were calling each other “comrade” at the launch.
Seriously.
And the “full costings” that aren’t, and those they attempt to cost use numbers generated by friendly think-tanks…
And yes I know I’ve said it before, but their understanding of second order effects would lead them to be genuinely surprised if a cake ban led to an increase in biscuit consumption.
Change the law? What law – that’s private property, and although banking is regulated I don’t think there is any law dictating where banks have to be (or even can be other than as retail businesses)?
So what this seems to be saying is that a Labour government would assert their right to determine the use of private property, costing banks money and meaning that costs would be passed on to customers. Seems like a sensible and well-thought-out proposal.
Will they also force them to open branches where there is a local ‘need’. After all I need one in my village so that I don’t have to go to town to pay in cheques. And I need it to be open until at least 10pm as I am at work all day and may need to do it in the evening, and I need it to be staffed by men in bowler hats like it was in its heyday as I need the staff to look traditional as otherwise I get upset…
What they mean by ‘local need’ is that a few comrades complain that they have to drive to a branch, and they’d prefer to have one nearer them. Oh, and one has a mother who’s disabled, so there you go.
Its pathetic bullshit even for ZaNu.
Do they imagine that millions will think that ruining the nation is a fair exchange for forestalling a few branch closures? When lots of branches have been closed by the rise of on-line banking already?
Convert them into public toilets. That will meet a need. Then the council can close them a few years later due to cottaging and other trading activities which they claim are undesirable.
There’s a clear local need right here for affordable lobster, champagne and fast sports cars. I demand someone be forced to provide me with this immediately!!!!!
As an aside, everyone laughs at people who read Atlas Shrugged and become a bit messianic about it, but really, are we not living it right now?
“As an aside, everyone laughs at people who read Atlas Shrugged and become a bit messianic about it, but really, are we not living it right now?”
No! Labour aren’t going to win, are they?
Oh. Hang on. Just had a read of what the Tories are proposing…
The first missions set by a Labour government will be to:
ensure that 60 per cent of the UK’s energy comes from zero-carbon or renewable sources by 2030
How many atomic piles can we build in the next 13 years? Given that we’ve built only one since 1987 IIRC.
NEGOTIATING BREXIT
Labour accepts the referendum result and a Labour government will put the national interest first.
Sounds good. How?
A Labour government will immediately guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain
Ah, the old unilateral disarmament negotiating gambit.
Unlike the Tories, we will uphold the proud British tradition of honouring the spirit of international law and our moral obligations by taking our fair share of refugees.
Our children can just lie back and think of England.
Wimmins issues:
Violence against women and girls continues to be a global epidemic […] Labour will continue to ensure a woman’s right to choose a safe, legal abortion – and we will work with the Assembly to extend that right to women in Northern Ireland.
Nothing says “end violence against girls” like exterminating them in Mummy’s womb.
Trannies:
A Labour government will reform the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act 2010 to ensure they protect Trans people by changing the protected characteristic of ‘gender assignment’ to ‘gender identity’ and remove other outdated language such as ‘transsexual’.
Transsexual is the new coloured.
And we will ensure that the new guidance for relationships and sex education is LGBT inclusive.
When your kids aren’t dodging “refugees”, Labour will ensure they receive proper education on buttplugs.
The Jews:
Anti-Semitic incidents are also on the rise once more
It’s a complete mystery why this is.
We will end racism and discrimination against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and protect the right to lead a nomadic way of life.
Make driveway scams great again.
Ed Milliband issues:
Autism covers a wide range of conditions that reflect neurological differences among people. We will work with employers, trade unions and public services to improve awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace and in society.
who defines “need” in this case and who decides? Which bank is forced to open a branch in an area where The Central Planner decides there is A Need?
I think there’s a case for some sort of USO for banking, but politicians’ friends deciding which branches stay open isn’t the way to achieve it.
If anyone can tell me what need a modern-day bank branch serves, local or otherwise, I’d be interested to know. Employing a greasy spiv with a fat tie and flammable suit, perhaps?
I foresee terrible legislation. Ok, you can’t close the branch; but you can reduce the hours to 8am-9am one day a week. Or maybe the branch can conveniently run out of banknotes every single day. Or maybe the physical building will remain, but it will be occupied by a coffee shop with an ATM in the corner for banking services. I look forward to my cup of NatWest coffee.
Maybe they can do something like what companies do when they move office: travel to/from the next nearest branch is reimbursed for two years. This is done as a lump-sum payment, based on the number of times you’ve actually visited the now-closed branch in the last two years.
@ Tim Newman
Paying in cash.
Do you think that Associated British Foods wants every artisan baker to cash for its flour and every corner shop to pay cash for its packaged loaves and every council and utility will send someone round to collect payment in cash?
Also I find the staff at the local branch very helpful and they regularly sort out the mess created by the bank’s computers and its callcentre “helpline” (no, *not* created by me).
@ The Mole
Night safes are accessible after 10pm
Weirdly enough I saw a mobile Lloyds bank the other day, a little vehicle like a library van, parked up in a local market town. I hadn’t even noticed that that Lloyds branch had closed to be honest, not that I have an account with them but did use their cash point occasionally. If small towns/villages need banking services surely thats the way to go.
Anyway who needs a local bank branch anyway? Even if you have cheques to deposit you can do it at Post Offices for most bank accounts, plus some allow you to deposit cash too (Santander for example). There are cash points everywhere, plus cash back at shops. What other day to day banking needs do you have that requires a close by branch? More complicated stuff you’d need to go to the local main branch anyway, the small branch offices can’t deal with much other than money In/Out.
Labour will change the law so that banks can’t close a branch where there is a clear local need, putting their customers first.
You can’t make this up, can you?
Tim N, Probate and Power of Attorney spring to mind from personal experience. I can’t see any way you could transfer ownership of accounts without lots of photocopying and eyeballing id.
Although, assuming some clever clogs doesn’t work out some way to automate/app-ify this kind of stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t delegated to a trusted, shared third party one day. One branch handling the client-facing stuff for any bank, it’s not like the processes are going to vary that much. Maybe the Post Office would like the work.
Blimey even Michael Foot would consider this manifesto barmy. The immigration stuff alone will sink them.The real danger is the mad BluLanour cow will so badly screw up Brexit that a slightly more sane Labour party leader will get elected at the next but one election, and implement half this lunacy. OK the mad BluLabour cow is probably going to implement a quarter of it anyhow. We can probably just survive that, but anymore and we’re sunk.
They’re complaining that as a non-government party they don’t have the access to civil servants and researchers to properly research and cost out their manifesto. But isn’t that what Short Money was introduced in the 1970s for?
Snitched from TiS:
Unlike the Tories, we will uphold the proud British tradition of honouring the spirit of international law and our moral obligations by taking our fair share of refugees.
so that
Violence against women and girls continues to be a global epidemic
in which the UK can participate fully.
“Neurodiversity”
WTF?
To follow the other comments – you’re defining “clear” as “profitable”!
“Neurodiversity”
You don’t have to be mad to vote Labour but it helps???
Post offices currently run certain banking services. ISTM it would make sense for banks to outsource some of their services in this way so that they don’t need to have a branch each.
Post Offices already do all the money in/money out for both personal and business accounts for most major banks:
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/branch-banking-services
Let’s suppose a small town has several banks, and they progressively shut down. The ‘last man standing’ does the business for all the others. Why not pool the costs, run some cashpoints, and provide ‘talk to the manager’ services with a peripatetic manager doing a day a week, but with all banks having a day’s representation and pooling the costs.
“Why not pool the costs, run some cashpoints, and provide ‘talk to the manager’ services with a peripatetic manager doing a day a week, but with all banks having a day’s representation and pooling the costs.”
Could that not fall foul of competition law? Too much ‘co-operation’ resulting in a stitch up of the customers?
@Jim, May 16, 2017 at 1:32 pm
1. Large “village” (3 pubs, 2 restaurants & [my parents’] hotel) had mobile bank 3 mornings/week & mobile libraray 1 afternoon&evening/week. GP was mornings 3 days, afternoons 2 days. This was late 70s early 80s
2. Many shop ATMs will be vanishing following VOA appeal win on rates (est. extra rates £2,000 – £5,000 pa)
Opinions, opinions, opinions.
If you want to close that branch, you have to ask the opinion of the local Blockwart.
If you want to run a business you have to factor in my opinion. This is easier than it sounds, because if your plan makes sense, then my opinion will always be NO!
Excavator Man,
Hence my comment about a USO. its not beyond the whit of man to get banks to pay in to a fund which they can draw from if they are the last man standing and it’s loss making to stay there. It could even come out of what they pay for having the too big to fail protection.
Personally I’d let the market resolve which the PO seems to be doing, it but if politicians must interfere let it be using a mechanism that has precedent rather than political whim.
Neurodiversity – it really is a word (though spellchecker doesn’t think so).
‘neurodiversity is the idea that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are the result of normal, natural variation in the human genome.’ – Psychology Today
Since they are normal . . . yeah, normal . . . maybe bank branches will become the new DMV.
@Jim: “Even if you have cheques to deposit you can do it at Post Offices for most bank accounts…”
Over here in the Canadian colonies we deposit a lot of cheques by photographing them front and back with our smart phones and a bank app.
Likewise cheque use is a dying thing here as more and more money moves by bank web-page and app plus email to the recipient.
It’s so efficient and save the banks so much money that many are now doing it for free.
I always assumed you lot in the UK could do those things too. Am I wrong?
Anyway, my point is that Labour seems composed mostly of antediluvian reptile Luddite idiots, never mid their Seumas Milne nasty-fuckerness.
Yes the post office can be used to pay things in. But why use them?
Pay a cheque in at the local branch of a bank tomorrow and can draw it out Friday. Pay it in at the post office and can draw it out after the bank holiday.
Went into my local branch yesterday, 2nd time in 9 months. Could quite easily be a year or two before I pop in again. If at all.
Pretty much everything that in 1990 I did in a branch I do by internet and phone these days.
Jim, NielsR, Nautical Nick – Post offices? What post offices? You think they aren’t going, or haven’t already gone, the same way as the banks in most small communities?
“Post offices? What post offices?”
There’s over 11.5k Post Offices in the UK, you’ll find them in all sorts of places that don’t have banks. For example there’s a small village near me, had a Lloyds, its gone. Got a PO tho. Ditto small market towns in two directions, no banks, but have POs.
I’d hazard a guess that most people are far closer to to PO branch than a bank.
BiND, I didn’t know what a USO was, and in this case, Google & Wikipedia didn’t help. My suggestion of shared facilities was because talking to a manager is something best done face to face, whereas you can pay in a check to pretty much any bank, and the rest can be done on the internet. It would stop all the bank premises turning into charity shops, estate agents, or coffee bars!
@Excavator Man
USO – Universal Service Obligation
Oh yeah! Close all the competing banks and force the lumpenproletariat to, use the Post Office for all its cash payments and receipts with queues two hours long on pension payment day.
I want a banking system fit to use and I am paying for it through the lost interest income on the balance in my current account but all the idiots who still think that internet banking is secure after $81m was stolen from the Bangladesh Central Bank say that I must use internet banking and only draw/pay in cash at the Post Office. Next week they will forbid me to buy a decent loaf from the baker and insist that I buy a sliced loaf from the supermarket