The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat 23rd of the June 2016 will always be remembered by the people of United Kingdom . People have spoken and they want out. United Kingdom is out of the EU and Pound is down to the value it has not seen in many decades. This is the most momentous and seismic event after 1945. What is going to happen is anyone's guess as most people are coming to grips with the new reality. The sheer weight of immigration forced British people to leave European Union . In the short to medium term, British economy will come under great stress from the uncertainty created by the Brexit. There is a danger that jobs will be moved from London to European Union centres and London may lose a lot of business to rival cities within the Union. It will take at least two years for the negotiations to conclude between UK and EU on terms of exit. David Cameron has resigned but will stay on till October when new PM will be selected who will trigger article 50. Article 50 st...

The crab-like performance of the last two years is not easy to explain – a third year of the same would be . The sales have started early this year, which means the economy is struggling . Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA On the Saturday before Christmas the shop windows told their own story. Up to 50% off at Hobbs. Discounts of 60% at LK Bennett. Similar reductions at French Connection and the Gap . The sales started early this year and that means the economy is struggling. Fearful of being left with large amounts of unsold stock, retailers are slashing prices to attract hard-up consumers. It was the same a year ago. Hopes of recovery have been dashed in 2012, a year in which the UK has gone nowhere fast. Interest rates, gross domestic product and house prices are where they were in January. The economy is not collapsing but it is not growing either. For the past two years it has gone sideways, and the expectation at the Bank of England and the Treasury is that...

What Is Wrong With British Economy ? By Sikander Hayat Well, the economic situation is pretty dire at the moment. Double dip recession & worst have visited UK with looming referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 makes matter even worse. If Scotland goes ahead & becomes an independent nation , that will take away a huge chunk of territory, prestige & oil reserves from UK . Jobs are pretty scarce where hard working people all around the country are trying to make ends meet with their limited resources. Times are hard but government is not coming up with any answers & it seems that nobody in the corridors of powers knows the answer to the troubles. Lack of demand in the economy is not being offset by the increasing exports resulting in decreased output & more people working part time waiting for the good times to come back. It seems that we need to find new markets for our products and these markets are not likely to be in Europe for next fe...

The Second Great Betrayal: Obama and Cameron Decide that Banks are above the Law One of the “tells” that reveals how embarrassed Lanny Breuer (head of the Criminal Division) and Eric Holder (AG) are by the disgraceful refusal to prosecute HSBC and its officers for their tens of thousands of felonies are the false and misleading statements made by the Department of Justice (DOJ) about the settlement.  The same pattern has been demonstrated by other writers in the case of the false and disingenuous statistics DOJ has trumpeted to attempt to disguise the abject failure of their efforts to prosecute the elite officers who directed the “epidemic” (FBI 2004) of mortgage fraud. HSBC was one of the largest originators of fraudulent mortgage loans through its acquisition of Household Finance . Three recent books by “insiders” have confirmed earlier articles revealing the decisive role that Treasury Secretary Geithner has played in opposing criminal prosecutions of the elite...

Britain should “pare down” it relationship with the European Union then put it to a vote in a referendum, the London Mayor Boris Johnson said today. Mr Johnson said returning Britain to a “single market” relationship with the European Union was both “essential and deliverable”, but said if voters did not like it they could opt to leave the EU altogether. He said it was “high time” that the British people had a chance to vote on the issue. In the next few weeks David Cameron is expected to set out his approach to Britain’s relationship with Europe in a key note speech. He is expected to announce a referendum on Britain’s relationship with Europe after the 2015 election but is resisting calls for an in/out question. But in remarks which are unlikely to be welcomed either in Downing Street or Brussels, Mr Johnson said he believed Britain should abandon the goal of being “at the heart of Europe” and instead demand a “common sense” relationship. This would see the UK involved in...

(Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS AG is nearing a deal to settle claims some of its staff manipulated interest rates and could reach agreement with U.S. and British authorities by the end of the year, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. UBS is expected to pay more than $450 million (279 million pounds) to settle claims some of its employees submitted false Libor rates, the New York Times reported earlier. Britain's Barclays Plc was fined $453 million in June for manipulating Libor benchmark interest rates, and remains the only bank to settle in the investigation, which led to the resignation of the bank's chairman and chief executive. U.S. and UK regulators, which released their settlements with Barclays at the same time, are working together on the UBS investigation and could release an agreement by the end of the year, although the timing could slip into next year,...

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates. BBC business editor Robert Peston said he was encouraged to go by the heads of the Bank of England and the FSA. Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked "damaging the franchise". Chief operating officer Jerry del Missier has also resigned, the third top executive in two days to do so. Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, who had announced his own resignation on Monday, will now take over the running of Barclays until a new chief executive is appointed. 'Cynical greed' BBC business editor Robert Peston said the heads of the City's two main regulators had been unable to force Mr Diamond out "because the recent FSA investigation into how Barclays attempted to rig the important Libor interest rates did not find him personally culpable". "How...

The release of a UK hostage in Somalia has drawn attention to the British security firms which are increasingly dominating Somalia's lucrative anti-piracy industry. It was a family ransom which ultimately secured the release of Hertfordshire social worker Judith Tebbutt this week, but there have been media reports of negotiators who paved the way for the 56-year-old's safe return. With the UK government saying it refuses to talk to kidnappers, the door has opened for private security firms to fill the void in this troubled African country. The Times reported that specialist lawyers at one such company, Control Risks, spent months thrashing out the deal - but the firm will not confirm or deny helping free the mother. Read the full story here. 

Coutts & Co, the private bank used by the Queen, has been fined £8.75m for failing to take required precautions against money laundering in the first case to emerge from a Financial Services Authority probe into the way banks handle accounts of overseas politicians and other high-risk customers. The FSA said that Coutts, which is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland, routinely failed to gather crucial information about so-called politically exposed persons, including the source of their funds, and did not properly monitor their transactions. These violations of UK rules continued from 2007 to 2010, when they were uncovered during the FSA’s industry-wide review. Read the full article here.