Charmless and the Chocolate Fuckwittery

In spite of having desperately trying to woo big business for thirteen long years - while at the same time, destroying the environment in which any business might succeed - Labour's mask is finally slipping, and the socialists' true feelings are showing through.

First, the great National Insurance debacle, which hilariously climaxed with senior Labour figures muttering that the business heads who disagreed with the Government didn't really understand, and didn't really know what they were talking about.

And now Labour is pissing off business and the City all over again. What is it now? Why, it's the proposed Cadbury's Law , new legislation which merrily tramples all over the long-established ways in which takeovers, mergers and acquisitions occur.

Can't you just tell, without even hearing the details - that it's going to be a knee jerk, ill-thought-out, pathetically populist piece of proposed legislation? It's even got a media-friendly nickname, for fuck's sake.

And let's have look at this idea. Is it going to be the usual socialist 'make everything fairer by forbidding things' fuckwittery? Of course it is.

The new laws are apparently designed to prevent the takeover of a company of 'National Interest'. There we go, it's falling apart already. Who decides if a company is of national interest? The Lord High Mandelson? Robert Peston? Clunker Broon? The Daily Mirror?

And then, once it is, the interference begins: the plan is to change takeover regulations to insist that two-thirds of shareholders must approve big transactions, as opposed to the simple majority required at the moment.

Good word, that: 'Big'. It can mean whatever FoyBoy wants it to. And it's a bit of an odd twist on the old democracy thing, isn't it? Perhaps Labour want to trial it in business, with a view to using in General Elections, to keep the eevil Tories out.

And there's more: there'll be rules designed to limit the influence of short-term investors such as hedge funds, by excluding them from buying shares during bids and from voting on the transaction.

So certain people and institutions will be forbidden from particpating? Oh this is grand. We already know from the Great Bonus Tax fuck-up that no-one in the Government actually knows what all the different financial institutions are, and what they actually do, so how will this work? The FSA? Yeah, right.

Yep, even without the full details, that sounds just as unworkable as any of the stupid ideas that pour out this woeful Government.

Andy Brough, a fund manager, said that under the proposals..

"..everyone loses out. Shareholders and pension funds would have a lower return. Capital would be left in companies which have reached their sell-by date."

'Everyone loses out'? Yeah: that's New Labour, right there, mate.


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