KHOODEELAAR! updating on the evidence of CRASS role being played by Boris Johnson for Crassrail in London... 'Crossrail'

2328 Hrs GMT London Thursday 4 December 2008:

By © Muhammad Haque


KHOODEELAAR! updating the evidential basis for the legal and the constitutional law challenges to the peddlers of the London Crossrail scam....….On the day [Thursday 4 December 2008] that even the Financial Times [a big Business in-house propaganda organ that has been engaged in ferociously promoting CRASSrail until just recently] is reporting dire economic times ahead, the secret-society agenda-setters for Big Business scam London Crossrail are using bragging phrases like ‘Crossrail full speed ahead’, and are doing so against the advice of … wait for it... even the CBI! Now if that were not definitive proof that even capitalism [OK, the relatively less crazy bits of it] is disowning the crass behaviour by the ignorant touts for Crossrail - eg Blunderer Boris - then there cannot be any more rational source from that field... to show how that CRASSrail is doomed and its touts condemned to waste £Billions of UK public resource too..before they are forced to admit that they were lying all along [ a la Ken LYINGSTILL Livingstone over the 2012 Olympic Games hosting BID hypes]…. because the economy simply does not have the capacity to carry it.…A sensible, responsible and sound thinking Gordon Brown would scrap it now.…

[To be continued]

From the Financial Times [FT] London:

"UK interest rates lowest since 1951
By Chris Giles and Ralph Atkins
Published: December 4 2008 12:00 | Last updated: December 4 2008 22:06
Interest rates were slashed by another percentage point on Thursday, bringing the official cost of borrowing down to 2 per cent, equal to the lowest rate since the Bank of England was founded in 1694.

The sudden and brutal deterioration in the economic outlook across Europe also prompted the European Central Bank to cut its main policy rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.5 per cent – its largest reduction ever – just hours after Sweden’s central bank cut the country’s official borrowing costs by a record 175 basis points.


EDITOR’S CHOICE
Real borrowing costs remain high - Dec-04

Effect of rate cuts likely to disappoint - Dec-04

Samuel Brittan: on economic stability - Dec-04

Editorial Comment: Beating the crisis needs co-operation - Dec-04

Lack of trust remains issue for companies - Dec-04

Lex: When the rate cuts are done - Dec-04

Sterling fell to $1.45 ahead of the Bank of England announcement, but recovered to close the day at $1.476, down less than a cent, amid signs of further pressure on the currency.

Even though none of the European central banks gave any encouragement to traders betting on further rate cuts, financial markets expect UK rates to fall to 1 per cent in the months to come and another 0.5 percentage point reduction in the eurozone by February. The last time the UK had a rate of 2 per cent was 1951.

The bad economic figures continued to flow on Thursday, with Halifax the mortgage lender reporting house prices fell by another 2.6 per cent in November, the biggest month-on-month fall for more than 16 years, while new car registrations were 37 per cent lower in November from a year earlier. Despite the dramatic action of the central bank, which has cut rates by 3 percentage points in the past eight weeks, not all banks said they would pass on the full reduction.

Halifax, Britain’s largest mortgage lender, passed on the cut to its tracker mortgage customers, but said it would cut its standard variable rate by only 0.25 percentage points. It said that it, unlike many of its competitors, had passed on all of the recent rate reductions and had to balance “the interest of its customers with the commercial imperative of managing its business in a sustainable and prudent fashion”.

HSBC and Lloyds TSB announced they would pass on the rate cut in full to existing borrowers with variable rate loans while the Royal Bank of Scotland made a similar commitment for business customers but said it would balance needs of personal savers and borrowers.

The Bank’s move was welcomed by Gordon Brown who said: “You will see interest rates at a relatively low level for some time now because inflation and the cost of oil is coming down”.

But George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, insisted the bank would have been able to go further had the public finances been in a better shape.

The CBI employers’ organisation was pleased with what it described as a “big strike” on rates, but Ian McCafferty, the CBI’s chief economic adviser, warned that “what is critical for business and consumers alike is that this reduction is passed on”.

The ECB’s move was welcomed by many economists. “The ECB is starting to get real,” and was recognising the severity of the downturn, argued Holger Schmieding, European economist at Bank of America. “Unfortunately, the recessionary forces are even more impressive.”

The size of the ECB’s cut appeared to have caused controversy within its 21-strong governing council, which also discussed a smaller reduction. Mr Trichet said the eventual decision had been reached by “consensus” rather than its usual unanimity.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008