Our Northern Rock - Zimbabwe business shame.

Greg Hands over on Conservativehome's CentreRight section points out some disturbing news for us regarding business with Zimbabwe.

My take: The Independent on Sunday is reporting that six Conservatives own shares in companies that are doing business in Zimbabwe. But did you know that we the British public are doing business with Zimbabwe? Do your hands feel dirty? Well don't feel too dirty because you probably knew nothing about your involvement in supporting a brutal regime.

The Times reported on this statement from David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary this week: “I condemn anything that gives succour, either financial or moral, to the Zanu (PF) leaders.”

Well maybe David Miliband would like to explain why this statement appears on the Northern Rock Guernsey Limited website (A subsidiary of Northern Rock):

Northern Rock (Guernsey) Limited does not accept new account applications from residents of the African continent, with the exception of applications from residents of Egypt, South Africa and Zimbabwe. New account applications are accepted for existing Northern Rock (Guernsey) Limited customers and additional deposits are accepted into existing accounts already held.

So a bank owned by the British public is doing business with Zimbabwe. I think we can assume that the people likely to be taking advantage of Guernsey's tax-free status will not be those being beaten, raped or murdered for having the nerve to vote against Mugabe. This needs stopping now and any money held should be frozen.

UPDATE: Guido has some bad news for the Independent.

Gordon Brown thinks the public will forgive and forget.

During his monthly press conference this morning Gordon Brown said: "Many of the things that have been written about for the last few weeks would be forgotten quickly." He may be right, but the problem he and his cabinet face is the fact that the label "incompetent" sticks, and that will not be forgotten - not this time. Incompetence is not just for Christmas, it's for life. We all know from work that when someone is officially found to be incompetent they are sacked - no ifs - no buts. Gordon and his party will be sacked at the next General Election, if they think otherwise, then they are deluding themselves.

Brown then came out with a classic: "I think people know that when a problem arises we will deal with it." That is a pure, out and out lie. He knows it's a lie, but he hopes that just by saying it some of the "not so bright" members of our society may just believe him. What has he dealt with? The bank details of 25 million families are still missing, the second outbreak of foot and mouth this year was the fault of the government, every week more and more of our money is being thrown at Northern Rock, not a week goes by without some part of the public sector threatening to strike and immigration is so out of control that we have illegal immigrants working on the front desk of the bloody Home Office.

Just who does Gordon think he is kidding?

If you missed the conference you can watch the highlights by clicking HERE.

Northern Rock to be bought by Virgin Consortium (Maybe).

A consortium led by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group has been chosen by Northern Rock as its preferred buyer. If the banks shareholders agree to the offer, then Virgin's consortium will make an immediate repayment of £11bn of the £25bn the bank owes the Bank of England. The question is, when will the other £14bn be paid back?

Well it turns out that Virgin will repay the remaining £14bn of Treasury loans over the next three years. This proves correct a report by the Financial Times last week that it had seen documents that said Northern Rock may not be able to repay its Bank of England loan until 2010. This also comes after Darling promised only last month that the loan would be repaid within a matter of weeks and months.

More spin from Labour - surely not?