No canoe and half a paddle

A resolute George Osborne has said the government will not change its austerity programme despite today’s unexpected news of a contraction in economic growth. But he knows from some stark arithmetic that the options are running out on a number of fronts.

Whilst Nick Clegg is keen to assure the country of ConDem support for a breakup of the banks to safeguard the British economy from the cost having to bail them out again, sceptical noises off-stage question the deliverability of any such commitment

It is not just the previous humiliating climb-down by ministers over bank bonuses and an abject failure to impose a loans package for small businesses that has some observers asking why a government with such a patently ineffective record in this policy area is so intent on making further hostages to outrageous fortune. Perplexity among the unwashed is compounded by an off-the-record admission from ‘internal Whitehall sources’ who moan that too many cooks within the respective coalition policy groups are concocting too many incompatible solutions all aimed at “dampening” excesses within the banking sector.

Of course, the indisputable PR reality is that the government desperately needs to be seen as a champion of the taxpayer. Party strategists know that there is only a dice-throw’s difference between the high-risk "casino banking” the deputy prime minister condemns and the equally risky gamble of slashing the public spending deficit in time for the next election.

Either way it is the British punter that will be forced to pick up the tab if things go to shit, hence an insistence from Downing Street that senior cabinet figures deploy themselves, as laid out in a Coulson legacy advice note, so as to “indentify more readily with overriding public concerns.” The guidance stems from focus group feedback which talks of a strong public perception that ‘the bastards (i.e. bankers) are getting away with it’ and an associated view held by B,C,D groups that RBS is a potentially bigger and more palpable threat to UK society than Al-Qaeda.

Cameron, Clegg, Osborne & Cable can lay claim in the media to be fighting on behalf of alarm-clock Britain as often as they like. The unavoidable fact is that ministerial bravado is repeatedly undermined by quiet compliance in  regard to a financial sector that appears able to do pretty much as it likes, when it likes.

The situation is probably best summed up by the ministerial aide whose unattributed comment went along the lines that the only example that top politicians set whenever they talk tough about the banks is one reminiscent of lemmings.