david cameron

DealBook: Cameron Pitches Britain to Investors Sour on Euro Zone

January 26, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTaking center stage at Davos, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain appeared to take a thinly veiled swipe at the Continent.

DAVOS, Switzerland — With concern lingering about the future of the euro zone, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain donned his salesman’s cap on Thursday and delivered a full-throated pitch to the throngs of executives and bankers gathered here: invest in Britain instead.

Taking center stage under a hail of spotlights, Mr. Cameron tried to draw a stark distinction between the euro zone and its ongoing economic and financial troubles, and conditions in Britain’s more open economy, where the government is pushing through what he called an “unashamedly pro-business” agenda.

World Economic Forum in Davos

View all posts

“Europe’s lack of competitiveness is its Achilles heel,” he told the hundreds of entrepreneurs and policy makers gathered in the audience, and then ticked off a series of studies showing that European Union nations were losing ground on productivity. By contrast, he argued, Britain “is taking bold steps necessary to get back on track.”

His remarks appeared to be a thinly veiled swipe at the Continent less than two months after European Union leaders criticized him for refusing to sign a Europewide pact intended to help stabilize the euro zone, leading to an outburst of tension between Britain and France that has since cooled.

But for all the contrast Mr. Cameron sought to draw, Britain’s economy remains mired in a slump that is just as bad, if not slightly worse, than that of major competitors like Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Much of the talk here in recent days has been over whether the fever of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has broken. A consensus seems to be emerging that the worst may be over, primarily because of the unexpectedly strong actions on the part of the European Central Bank to pump more money into Europe’s banking system.

Mr. Cameron, while acknowledging that the euro zone had already made “vital progress” toward resolving the crisis, painted a darker picture. “We need to be honest about the overall situation,” he said. “The crisis is still weighing down business confidence and investment.”

The troubles had already pushed the euro zone toward what could well be its second recession in three years. He argued that the region was at a “perilous moment” that menaced Britain’s own fragile economy, while neglecting to mention that his country had probably slipped into a recession of its own in the fourth quarter.

Declaring his desire to see Europe become “a success,” Mr. Cameron then rattled off a long list of reasons why the Continent might never be as competitive a marketplace for business as Britain.

Among other things, he cited data from the World Economic Forum showing that more than half of European Union member states were less competitive than a year ago. Meanwhile, he assailed a financial transaction tax favored by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, saying the measure, which is intended to thwart financial speculation, was “madness” at a time when Europe was trying to get national economies moving again.

“In spite of its economy and unemployment challenge, we are still doing things in the E.U. to make life harder,” he said. The bloc, he added, was “imposing burdens on businesses that destroy jobs.”

Moreover, he said, the uncertainty over whether Greece might default on its debts was not helping matters. In the near term, he added, Europe must bring that crisis to an end, recapitalize the Continent’s banks and create a financial firewall big enough to keep the problems in Greece from spreading to large countries like Italy and Spain.

The Continent also needs to move toward greater economic integration, fiscal transfers and debt issuance, he argued. “Currently, it’s not that the euro zone doesn’t have all of these; it’s that it doesn’t really have any of these,” he said, to a ripple of laughter.

By contrast, he contended, Britain was overhauling its public sector pensions, reducing its debt, scrapping red tape, whittling its corporate tax regime and working to get credit flowing from banks into the economy. “My message is: Invest in Britain,” he declared.

To those who think Britain is turning its back on Europe, “nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “It’s in our national interest to be part of the single market and we have no intention of walking away.”

Mr. Cameron then trotted out a surprise: Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, climbed to the stage to join Mr. Cameron’s call for investment, taking on the unabashed air of a circus barker. “People of Davos and investors around the world, come to London to see what we’re doing!” he called, pointing toward a video screen depicting shots of the city as it prepared to host the Olympic Games this summer.

Mr. Johnson, with his unruly straw-colored hair flying in every direction, extolled a list of products made in London, including bicycles, TV antennas and chocolate cake exported mostly to France, adding, “Let them eat cake, I always say.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=faec59d1a2a5c379e70ad12ffc080745

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: david cameron, euro zone, taking center stage

David Cameron to Address British Parliament Over Europe Treaty

December 12, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Mr. Clegg, a Liberal Democrat, told the BBC that the decision by the Conservative Mr. Cameron to veto proposed European treaty changes left Britain in danger of being “isolated and marginalized” in Europe. He added that if he had been in charge, “of course things would have been different.”

Mr. Cameron deployed his power of veto at a European Union summit meeting in Brussels, after failing to secure what he called vital safeguards for the health of London’s financial sector. But with the 26 other members of the European Union either agreeing to the proposed plan outright or saying they would put the matter before their Parliaments, Mr. Cameron’s veto on Friday left Britain alone on the margins at a time of great upheaval on the Continent, with the European Union struggling to resolve its financial crisis.

“This is the first veto in history not to stop something. The plans are going right ahead. It was a phantom veto against a phantom threat,” David Miliband, a former foreign secretary from the opposition Labour Party told the BBC on Monday. “David Cameron didn’t actually stop anything because the other 26 are going on and the provisions of the treaty would not have weakened our rights and freedoms one iota.”

The Labour opposition is likely to echo those complaints in Parliament, seeking to dent the enthusiasm of the dominant Conservatives. But the most serious political consequences of the veto concern the strained relationship between Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg.

On Friday, Mr. Clegg appeared to support Mr. Cameron’s decision, although he warned the Conservative Party’s anti-Europe wing against being too triumphant about the problems facing the European Union. But his stance hardened over the weekend, and on Sunday he appeared to have backtracked, or at least tried to finesse his explanation to show that was in line with his party’s pro-Europe principles.

In fact, Mr. Clegg told the BBC that when Mr. Cameron called him at 4 a.m. Friday with the news that Britain had vetoed the plan: “I said this was bad for Britain. I made it clear that it was untenable for me to welcome it.”

Mr. Clegg has already lost the confidence of many Liberal Democrats by appearing to betray the party’s position when he has supported the government on other issues, like increasing the amount of tuition colleges can charge.

After the summit meeting, many prominent Liberal Democrats went further than Mr. Clegg.

A former party leader, Paddy Ashdown, described Mr. Cameron’s veto as a “catastrophically bad move” and said it would do nothing to shield London’s financial district, the City, from future European regulations. “In the name of protecting the City, we have made it more vulnerable,” he said.

Lord Ashdown also warned that the move had alienated Europe in a way that would haunt the United Kingdom.

“The anti-European prejudice of some in the Tory party,” he said, “has now created anti-British prejudice in Europe.”

Mr. Clegg, a former member of the European Parliament, said he would now “fight, fight and fight again” to make sure Britain remained an influential force inside the European Union. He said he would resist “tooth and nail” efforts by some Conservatives to take the country completely out of the union, particularly since the United States has found Britain a useful conduit to Europe.

“A Britain that leaves the E.U. will be considered irrelevant by Washington and a pygmy in the world, when I want us to stand tall in the world,” he said.

Mr. Clegg criticized Conservatives who had hailed Mr. Cameron as a “British bulldog” for his tough line on Europe.

“There’s nothing bulldog about Britain hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, not standing tall in Europe, not being taken seriously in Washington,” he said.

To which one Conservative member of Parliament, Mark Pritchard, retorted, “Better to be a British bulldog than a Brussels poodle,” The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Cameron, meanwhile, was welcomed as a hero by his party’s anti-Europe right wing. “Up Eurs,” was the headline in Rupert Murdoch’s populist, anti-European tabloid newspaper, The Sun, along with a photograph of Mr. Cameron in a Churchillian bowler hat, holding two fingers up to Europe — the equivalent of an American middle finger.

“He did what I would have expected Margaret Thatcher to have done,” Andrew Rosindell, a Conservative member of Parliament, said approvingly.

But Kenneth Clarke, the Justice secretary and the Conservatives’ most prominent pro-Europe member, said in a radio interview that Mr. Cameron’s veto was a “disappointing, very surprising outcome.” He said he would be listening carefully to the prime minister’s statement in Parliament on the matter on Monday.

As upset as he is, Mr. Clegg said he did not want the coalition government to collapse.

“It would be even more damaging for us as a country if the coalition government was to fall apart,” he said. “That would cause economic disaster for the country at a time of great economic uncertainty.”

Alan Cowell contributed reporting.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=47567f4193bdd21c16813696f94fe1f0

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: david cameron, political consequences, summit meeting

DealBook: Moody’s Cuts Ratings for 12 British Banks

October 8, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Scott Eells/Bloomberg NewsMoody’s Investors Service headquarters in Manhattan.

6:02 p.m. | Updated

Moody’s Investors Service on Friday downgraded its ratings on 12 British financial institutions, including Lloyds TSB Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland, saying it thought Prime Minister David Cameron’s government was less likely to provide support for them in the event of failure.

It cut the senior debt and deposit ratings on the 12 lenders, citing its “reassessment of the support environment in the U.K., which has resulted in the removal of systemic support for seven smaller institutions and the reduction of systemic support by one to three notches for five larger, more systemically important financial institutions.”

Both Lloyds TSB Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland were bailed out by taxpayers during the 2008 crisis and most likely would have collapsed without that support.

Mr. Cameron’s chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said the downgrades were expected because the government was pursuing the right policy.

“As I understand it,” Mr. Osborne told BBC radio, “one of the reasons they’re doing this is that they think the British government is actually moving in the direction of trying to get away from guaranteeing all the largest banks in Britain, in other words trying to deal with the ‘too big to fail’ problem.”

He said the Vickers Commission report, which called in September for the separation of retail and investment banking activities, demonstrated that the government was serious about overhauling the industry.

“In other words,” he told the BBC, “people ask me, how are you going to avoid Britain and the British taxpayer bailing out the banks in the future? This government is taking steps to do that, and therefore credit ratings agencies and others will say, ‘Well actually, these banks have got to show that they can pay their way in the world.’ ”

Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland fell 3 percent in London, while Lloyds TSB Banking fell 3.4 percent.

Mr. Cameron added that he was “confident that British banks are well capitalized; they’re liquid; they’re not experiencing the problems that some of the banks in the euro zone are experiencing at the moment.”

Moody’s said British banks’ ratings continued to receive “up to three notches of uplift” from expectations of support, but “it is more likely now to allow smaller institutions to fail if they become financially troubled.” It noted that the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury had all made it clear that in the future the government would be more likely “to make greater use of its resolution tools to allow burden-sharing with senior bondholders.”

It stressed that the ratings cuts “do not reflect a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system or that of the government.”

It cut Lloyds TSB Bank and Santander U.K. to A1 from Aa3, Co-Operative Bank to A3 from A2 and R.B.S. and Nationwide Building Society to A2 from Aa3. It cut seven smaller institutions, as well.

Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland fell 3 percent in London, while Lloyds TSB Banking stock fell 3.4 percent.

Moody’s said four British banks continued to benefit from “a very high likelihood of support” from the government, including Barclays and HSBC Holdings, as well as Lloyds TSB and the Royal Bank of Scotland. It did not change its ratings of Barclays and HSBC.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6b9088182b9a15bf9c6938d4caecb379

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: david cameron, investors service, service headquarters

In Retreat, Murdoch Drops TV Takeover

July 13, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

The withdrawal from the bid for complete control of British Sky Broadcasting, also known as BSkyB, represented the most severe damage inflicted so far on Mr. Murdoch’s corporate ambitions by the scandal. Only a week ago, Mr. Murdoch hoped to contain the damage by shutting down his 168-year-old tabloid, The News of the World, which had admitted to ordering the hacking of the voice mail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered in 2002.

Since then, virtually every day has brought dizzying new disclosure and developments, culminating in News Corporation’s announcement on Wednesday.

In a statement, Chase Carey, the company’s deputy chairman, president and chief operating officer, said, “We believed that the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corporation would benefit both companies but it has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate.”

As the announcement was made, Prime Minister David Cameron was meeting with Milly Dowler’s parents at 10 Downing Street.

After the meeting, the Dowlers’ lawyer, Mark Lewis, spoke for them to a media throng on the street outside. He said that after what had been “an earth shattering week for everybody,” the family was pleased with the withdrawal of the BSkyB takeover bid because it demonstrated that “however big an organization is,” it could be held to account in a society under law.

It was unclear whether the withdrawal would mute the outcry against Mr. Murdoch’s operations in Britain. Within minutes of News Corporation’s announcement, politicians from the Labour opposition and the Liberal Democrat junior coalition partner said competition authorities should investigate whether to challenge the Murdoch family’s existing 39 percent stake in BSkyB.

Ofcom, the media regulator, said it would continue its scrutiny of BSkyB’s ownership structure.

According to British law, News Corporation would be allowed to make another bid for the BSkyB shares it does not already own in six months. Some analysts said another bid is indeed likely, but that the company would probably have to wait until all investigations into the phone hacking and bribery allegations were completed, a process that is expected to take far longer than six months.

As the announcement was made, the chief lawyer for News International, the British subsidiary of the News Corporation, confirmed reports that he was quitting after 26 years with the company. Officials at the firm said that the lawyer, Tom Crone, had been chiefly responsible for clearing controversial stories published in The News of the World and another paper in the Murdoch stable, The Sun. His resignation made him the first senior executive of News International to quit in the scandal.

In Washington, Senator Jay D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he had asked officials to investigate whether any News Corporation entities in the United States had employed illegal methods in their news gathering operations.

The Daily Mirror newspaper had reported that journalists had sought to secure phone data concerning Sept. 11 victims from a private investigator in the United States.

“The reported hacking by News Corporation newspapers against a range of individuals — including children — is offensive and a serious breach of journalistic ethics,” he said in a statement. “This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken U.S. law.

The senator voiced particular concern for the victims of the 9/11 attacks and their families. If the phone hacking did extend to them, he said, “the consequences will be severe.”

Only hours before News Corporation’s announcement, Mr. Cameron made what amounted with his final break with Mr. Murdoch by joining in the common front in Parliament in urging him to drop the bid for BSkyB, reversing his previous support. The announcement came just before Parliament was set to approve the cross-party call for Mr. Murdoch to abandon his long-cherished desire to take full control of the lucrative satellite broadcaster — a deal regarded as the cornerstone of his strategy for corporate expansion.

Mr. Cameron said Murdoch executives should “stop the business of mergers and get on with cleaning the stables.”

John F. Burns reported from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Ravi Somaiya and Julia Werdigier from London.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/world/europe/14hacking.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: 10 downing street, david cameron, voice mail

Murdoch Facing Parliament’s Ire in Hacking Case

July 7, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

But though he joined in the chorus of outrage, Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party benefits from Mr. Murdoch’s support, stopped short of calling for an immediate investigation into behavior by the Murdoch-owned News of the World and other tabloids. Such an inquiry would have to wait, he said, until the police had concluded their own criminal investigation.

From all sides of the House of Commons the disgust came thick and fast, as the legislators recited the most recent allegations against The News of the World: that its executives had paid police officers, lied to Parliament and hired investigators to intercept voice mail messages left on the cellphones of murdered children and terrorism victims. Legislators also attacked the news media in general for employing many of the same tactics.

The scandal posed new hurdles for Mr. Murdoch’s proposed $12 billion takeover of the pay-television company British Sky Broadcasting, as many legislators criticized the deal, and Britain’s media regulatory agency, Ofcom, said it was “closely monitoring the situation.”

“We have let one man have far too great a sway over our national life,” said Chris Bryant, a Labour member of Parliament. In addition to The News of the World, Mr. Murdoch’s media holdings include The Times of London; The Sun; and a large stake in BSkyB, as it is called, as well as several other international newspapers and television networks.

Meanwhile, John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the House of Commons culture and media committee, rehearsed in tones of high indignation how executives from The News of the World and its parent company, News International, had thwarted legislators’ efforts to get to the bottom of the phone hacking affair by stonewalling, refusing to testify and even lying outright during parliamentary hearings.

Zac Goldsmith, another Conservative legislator, said that Mr. Murdoch was guilty of “systemic abuse of almost unprecedented power” and had run roughshod over Parliament.

“There is nothing noble in what these newspapers have been doing,” he said. “Rupert Murdoch is clearly a very, very talented businessman — he’s possibly even a genius — but his organization has grown too powerful and has abused that power. It has systematically corrupted the police and in my view has gelded this Parliament, to our shame.”

A number of legislators, including Nicholas Soames, a Conservative, said Wednesday that in light of the recent developments, the government should intervene to delay or even stop Mr. Murdoch’s plan to acquire all the shares of BSkyB.

“I urge the government to look at whether we should pause things given what has come to light,” said Anna Soubry, a Conservative member of Parliament.

Before this week, the deal had passed virtually every government hurdle. But Ofcom, the media regulator, said in a statement that it was watching developments in the case, “and in particular the investigations by the relevant authorities into the alleged unlawful activities.”

Many legislators also focused their outrage on Rebekah Brooks, a former News of the World editor who is now News International’s chief executive and a protégé of Mr. Murdoch. She is a close friend of Mr. Cameron’s — the two have country houses near each other and have often socialized — and has been a strong champion of his premiership.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said flatly that Ms. Brooks should resign.

But Ms. Brooks said she would stay put, and on Wednesday her boss, Mr. Murdoch, took the unusual step of issuing a statement on the matter.

Calling the recent allegations involving phone hacking and paying off the police “deplorable and unacceptable,” Mr. Murdoch pledged that the company would “fully and proactively cooperate with the police in all investigations.” He added: “That is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks’s leadership.”

Alan Cowell and Eric Pfanner contributed reporting from Paris.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 6, 2011

A caption with an earlier version of this article misstated the day the photo was taken as Thursday.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 6, 2011

An earlier version of this article omitted the given name and title of Ed Miliband, the Labour Party leader.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/world/europe/07britain.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: david cameron, international newspapers, news of the world

Britain and China Seal Trade Deals

June 28, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

In announcing the deals, worth about $2.2 billion, the British prime minister, David Cameron, restated the goal of doubling trade between the two countries to $100 billion by 2015. Mr. Wen said that he was “confident” of meeting that aim.

“The purpose of my visit is to promote communication, cooperation and development,” Mr. Wen said during a news conference in London. Mr. Cameron said China presented a “huge opportunity” for British companies.

Mr. Wen is more than halfway through a four-day European tour that has taken him to Hungary and was to see him travel to Germany late Monday.

After a meeting with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, over the weekend, Mr. Wen said that China had “total trust in Europe’s economic development” and would “consistently support Europe and the euro.”

In Britain, Mr. Cameron’s government is trying to strengthen trade relations with the faster-growing China. The goal is to increase exports and bolster Britain’s manufacturing industry to speed up an economic recovery that has recently started to slow.

British exports to China have grown 20 percent since November, when Mr. Cameron visited Beijing with a business delegation. China has become the third-largest source of British imports, after Germany and the United States, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Britain and China agreed Monday to increase infrastructure investments in both countries and grant British businesses better access to China’s civil engineering and research markets. A ban on British poultry exports to China, which was put in place as a result of avian flu cases in 2007, was lifted and Britain is to sell more pigs and pig meat to China.

Diageo, the British spirits company, said Monday that Chinese regulators had approved its acquisition of an additional 4 percent stake in the liquor maker Sichuan Chengdu Quanxing, giving Diageo control over the Chinese rival.

Other deals announced after the talks included an agreement between Weatherly International, a British mining company, and the East China Mineral Exploration and Development Bureau to cooperate on the development of a lead zinc mine in Namibia. BG Group, the British natural gas company, also signed a deal with Bank of China to receive up to $1.5 billion in financing.

During the news conference, Mr. Wen dodged questions about China’s human rights record. “On human rights, China and the U.K. should respect each other, respect the facts, treat each other as equals, engage in more cooperation than finger-pointing and resolve our differences through dialogue,” he said.

On the same issue, Mr. Cameron merely repeated a statement from his last China visit, saying, “We do believe the best guarantor of prosperity and stability is for economic and political progress to go in step together.”

Mr. Wen was to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Berlin on Monday. China and Germany are expected to announce 30 different cooperation and trade agreements on Tuesday, according to the German foreign ministry.

As part of those talks, officials were to discuss a possible order for superjumbo jets that has caused some controversy. China is pushing the European Union to abandon plans to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of airlines, including foreign-owned ones, flying to and from the 27-country bloc. Beijing warned earlier this month that it could block its carriers from purchasing new planes built by the European plane maker Airbus if Brussels pressed ahead with the plans.

The issue came to a head at the Paris Air Show last week, when Chinese officials sought to derail an order for 10 Airbus A380 superjumbo jets by Hong Kong Airlines, a domestic carrier that operates between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. Airbus had planned to announce the $3.8 billion contract, which had already been signed by the airline, at the show, but Beijing declined to give its final approval, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Formal approval of the deal was expected to be granted eventually, said the people, who requested anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the situation. They said, however, that further Chinese orders of Airbus jets had been delayed, including one sizable order that Airbus had hoped to announce during Mr. Wen’s visit to Germany. It was unclear whether that deal would now be modified or postponed.

Nicola Clark contributed reporting from Paris.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=7cceaace3882e2a7a5ad7abcb38fc14c

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: avian flu, david cameron, pig meat