The Tories- A Warning From History or Labour Being Honest, Shocker

We have had a couple of months now since the Election and we have all been waiting to see how this is all going to pan out.

Well for me yesterdays 'Big Society' launch was the clincher that the 'Big State' is here to stay under the Cleggeron and any Libertarian worth their salt should not be taken in by Con-Dem mood music. This is not the State getting out of our face or pockets.

First let me congratulate the Labour Party on their honesty. I suspect that
they have been sitting back waiting as well. The Labour Party have shown their true colours and are proud of it. Fair play to them. The choice between four apparatchik white upper middle class men in grey suits from the 'rentier 'political classes and a token black woman to make them feel better, have one thing in common. They are backing the public sector and their financing Unions all the way to the exclusion of everything else.

They are Stalinist and Proud, and have finally 'come out' of Nu Labour by the
collective driving of a stake into the Prince Of Darkness on the publication of his kiss and smear memoirs. Balls is leading protests of school girls about the 'cuts', the Unions are all tuning up. All good honest 19th century class warfare.

So turning to the Con Dem 'Big Society' concept.

How can you build a 'Big Society' that is predicated on theft !!

My estimed colleagues in the Libertarian Party in Scotland ask this very question and deconstruct the 'Big Society' blurb.. I agree with their analysis that this is a window dressing exercise by the State that we can no longer afford, but is desperate to survive.

Thaddeus Wilson expands on the State building the Big Society on filching money that has been carelessly left lying around in private bank accounts

For Christs sake this is not like the Cleggerron coming across a vein of untapped Gold in the Black Hills of Dakota, it is private money, it belongs to somebody.

Look in Zurich, Basle and Geneva, there are billions of Dollars of cash and assets that were accidently left lying around by millions of Jews and other minorities who were gassed, and by Nazis who got their billions of loot out of Germany before May 1945, but failed to survive the collapse of the Third Reich. The ownership of these assets are disputed, but one thing is not disputed is that they do not belong to the Swiss Government to build a new Swiss Society.

The Fabian State has got form on this sort of criminal behaviour. Let me tell you a story about Trustee Savings Banks or you can read it here for yourselves.


The UK's Trustee Savings Banks had been collecting and looking after the working population's small savings for about 200 years. They were formed 'for the safe custody, and increase of small earnings belonging to the labouring and industrious classes'.

Trustees held the Bank 'upon Trust' for the depositors who in turn can appoint and remove trustees. Until recently Trustees were forbidden to 'receive any emolument, beyond actual expenses for the purpose of the institution'. The early savings banks were unincorporated associations for the sole benefit of the depositors.

So the Trustee Savings Bank (TSB) was run entirely for the benefit of its depositors. When profits were earned they were allocated to the bank which earned them and in part to a mutual assistance fund. Bank reserves (including assets) were accumulated from deposited savings. But accumulated reserves were not allocated or distributed to depositors.

Active in banking, credit cards, unit trusts and insurance, with more than 1,600 branches in the UK, the TSB had a profit of GBP 77 million in 1982.

In 1985, well known for friendly and effective service, the TSB had more branches than Barclays and was considered to be better managed than the big clearing banks. It had accumulated reserves of GBP 800 million, a lot of money in 1985.


£800m in an institution that was owned by the great unwashed British public,owned by millions of small deposit holders. Truly this was a 'Big Society' in every sense of the word. £800 m was too much for an institution that had no involvement from the State. The Thatcher Government looked on this this money much as the Cleggeron is looking upon the £400 m in the 'unclaimed' accounts mountain.

(Two years ago I was contacted by a pension company that I had forgotten about with a former employer, the sum in my unclaimed account was not insubstantial, and now forms part of my retirement fund. Had I not received the letter from them, this money would now be part of the Big Society Fund instead !)

The State Acted acted in concert with the Courts in one of the biggest robberies ever carried out in the United Kingdom. Only the Airdrie Savings Bank had the good sense not to be sucked into the TSB model, this avoiding making itself a target for Nationalisation/Privatisation by the State. It still thrives today and is a model of the type of banking we need to return to.

The 1981 TSB Act in turn stated that the TSB can accept deposits, accumulate the produce and return the deposits and produce to the depositors after deducting any necessary expenses of management, but without deriving any benefit from the deposits or produce.

The TSBs served the community. Trustees are meant to ensure the TSBs are run for the benefit of their depositors and of the community, their assets being looked after by Trustees on behalf of the depositors.

The UK government decided to 'privatise'(appropriate) the TSBs, to sell them off, stating in the 1984 White Paper: The TSBs do not belong to the Government. Nor do they belong to the trustees, to their employees or to their depositors.

So the government proceeded to sell the TSBs although it considers that they do not belong to the government, on the basis that the TSBs and their assets belong to nobody, that no one owns the bank. Is this starting to sound familiar in relation to the 'unclaimed bank accounts ' ?

The TSB's assets were to be transferred to a public limited company before flotation This is how Andrew Murray commented in the Financial Times:

As it considers that the TSB belongs to no one, the government apparently intends to appropriate the assets by Act of Parliament, fix the price, make the sale and return the payment with the goods. In other words, the existing assets would be a free gift to the purchasers of the shares.

The 1985 Act then took away the powers of the depositors. The bank is to be run first and foremost for its shareholders.


It did not seem to make sense to depositors and the matter was fought out in the courts in Scotland, then in England and Wales, and finally decided in the highest UK court, the House of Lords.

Their reasoning was interesting, their arguments appeared almost unreal, the conclusion was unexpected. The House of Lords agreed with the Government after all the subordinate Courts said the assets belonged to their Depositors. Quelle Surprise !

On this basis and chicanery, the £400m is as good as lost to the rightful owners of the unclaimed accounts. The Fabian State in the shape of Brown and the Cleggeron have all put forward proposals to use this money for the 'Public Good'.

This is nationalisation of private wealth or Finders, Keepers Theft and every Libertarian should be opposing this tooth and claw, not thinking this is the way to rolling back the State.

NOT IN MY NAME !

What of the £800m taken from the Depositors of the TSB, that took 200 years to build up. the TSB was absorbed into Lloyds. Lloyds were 'persuaded' by Brown to take over another former mutual/bank combine HBOS, a deal which has finally rendered TSB insolvent.

Two hundred years to build up, stolen by the State, twenty years to insolvency.

Concentration of political power and corporatism is called Fascism, that is why the 'Big Society/State' needs to be opposed.

Instead of the 'Big Society' with 'trained' community leaders lets go for the 'Small Libertarian State where voluntary institutions like the Airdrie Savings Bank can flourish.

Andrew Withers

Deputy Leader. Libertarian Party.