BRITAIN

BRITAIN

The London Times, London, July 29: John Kingman, the chief executive of UK Financial Investments (UKFI), announced yesterday that he would step down. UKFI is the body within the Treasury that manages the taxpayer’s stake in the partly or fully owned banks. Mr. Kingman cited neither a reason nor a date for his departure, but his decision gives a political signal. The Government’s strategy for restoring the banking system to health is in a state of drift, if not outright chaos.

No clear answer

The question of what to do with the newly acquired stakes in the banking sector has no clear answer. UKFI controls stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds HBOS, and it owns Northern Rock and the mortgage business of Bradford & Bingley. Mr. Kingman’s departure renders the issues still more opaque.

Regardless of politics, the Government must give a clearer sign of its intentions with regard to the taxpayer stakes in the banking sector. Its initial decision to inject fresh capital into the banks was right, as was the requirement to protect the taxpayer’s interest by taking direct equity stakes. In principle, the Government ought to hold those stakes until confidence returns to the banking system and to financial markets, and then sell them at a profit.

In practice, UKFI on behalf of the taxpayer will need to hold these stakes for some time yet, possibly for several years. The Treasury needs to give a sense of direction. And a rudderless ship is ill suited to the task.

NORWAY

Dagsavisen, Oslo, July 29: In the book “Animal Farm,” by George Orwell, the despotic boss hog Napoleon delivers the immortal line: ’All animals are equal. But some are more equal than others.’ Sometimes even the swine among us say something worth listening to.

Fierce debate

The swine flu pandemic is a good example of how some are more equal than others. The virus is emergent in the Western world. Here in Norway, a 4-H camp became — overnight — a 4-H1N1 camp instead. Scientists are working overtime to produce a vaccine. Who should receive the first doses is the subject of fierce debate.

The threat to health and life is real enough, and a disease that can kill must, of course, be fought. But we’ve blown the significance of the flu virus way out of proportion. Compare the reaction to swine flu to the international reaction to other, far more deadly and infectious diseases, and a stark contrast emerges.

ISRAEL

Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, July 26: “For these defendants, corruption was a way of life,” said New Jersey District Attorney Ralph Marra, speaking of rabbis and politicians ensnared in a $3 million money-laundering scandal.

For the rest of us, it was painful and embarrassing to watch Rabbi Saul Kassin, 87, the venerable leader of the Syrian Jewish community of metropolitan New York, being led away by federal agents.

One of the reasons ultra-Orthodox Jews wear dark suits, wide-brimmed hats and ritual fringes hanging outside their trousers is as a self-reminder that the Holy One above is a constant presence.

Among the ultra-Orthodox — Hassidic, Lithuanian and Sephardi — distinctive dress is intended to make it difficult to sin publicly or privately. You can never blend in or forget who you are.

Immorality

Plainly, however, haredi garb is not a foolproof protection against immorality.

Fair or not, the stock of the entire ultra-Orthodox world declines when outwardly pious Jews turn out to be slumlords, child-molesters or wife-abusers, proprietors of nursing homes that neglect their residents, dealers in human organs, money-launderers, or those who have no compunction about hurling bricks through the windshields of cars on Shabbat.