Sharia banking

This story involves three of the most inept politicians in a cabinet of all the ineptitudes - Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Ed Balls.


The Mail reports that the Labour "Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East. Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful". The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world. It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks....

The Mail on Sunday has established that Chancellor Alistair Darling is ready to give the go-ahead to sharia-compliant bonds – known as "sukuk", an early Arabic form of cheque. Treasury officials have been working behind the scenes for months on the plan. The deadline for responses to Mr Darling's consultation document setting out how the bonds will work expires on Thursday. The Islamic bonds proposal was devised by Mr Brown's former Treasury adviser Ed Balls, now Schools Secretary and the Premier's most powerful Cabinet ally. He claims it is a vital way of improving relations with Muslims in Britain as well as helping the UK to obtain vast sums from Middle-East banks in oil-rich nations such as Dubai and Qatar."



Are the public finances in such a bad state that we have to sell assets to oil rich investors in order to keep the country running? I think we know the answer to that question...


Some years ago the Treasury sold off a large number of HMRC buildings to a company Mapeley based in an off-shore tax haven. The Traeusury raised money up front in return for long term repayments. Read Private Eye's detailed expose of this deal for all the information. This Labour government have messed up the economy more than was beleieveable when they were elected and now as the pigeons come home to roost, the BBC will keep the truth from the electorate for as long as possible.