Tories want an "electric fence" between retail and investment banks.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20803548

Notice how the Conservatives have turned back on their manifesto of April 2010, based on my research below. It says "The Conservative Party has consistently argued that there is a case for banning retail banks, with their guaranteed deposit bases, from undertaking some of the riskiest “casino” banking activities."

Clearly the Conservatives are not banning retail banks from undertaking some of the riskiest activities, they just want to put up an "electric fence" between the two sets of activities.

And why are metaphors becoming more and more literal? Why is ring fencing now becoming "electric"?

I found this in their document "Change for the better in financial services" by the Conservative party in April 2010. Notice how the government is basically not prepared to take the lead, unless it is implemented internationally, or rather by USA first. Do we really want "universal" banks? How do feel having a bank more powerful than our government, or is this a ruse to garner support for a Universal World Government?

Who is the audience that this government is really playing to?

"

“Volcker Rules”

The Conservative Party has consistently argued that there is a case for banning retail banks, with their guaranteed deposit bases, from undertaking some of the riskiest “casino” banking activities.

Economists and policy makers agree that allowing ‘universal’ banks to use their deposit base – which is implicitly guaranteed by the government – to fund their riskier investment banking activities, exposes depositors and taxpayers to significant risks.

However, given the interconnectivity of the banking system we have always believed that a structural solution to this problem would have to be agreed internationally.

“I believe that there is a case for separating some of the riskiest investment banking activities - such as large scale proprietary trading - from retail banking. But it would not be sensible or indeed effective to impose that separation unilaterally, so we will continue to examine the case internationally.”

We welcome President Obama’s calls for a financial reform package in the United States to include the “Volcker Rules” which would enact this type of structural separation. In his remarks to Wall Street last week, President Obama restated his commitment to this reform:

“To that end, the bill would also enact what’s known as the Volcker Rule – and there’s a tall guy sitting in the front row here, Paul Volcker – who we named it after. And it does something very simple: It places some limits on the size of banks and the kinds of risks that banking institutions can take.”

Gordon Brown has repeatedly ruled out any separation between retail and investment banking activities without undertaking any analysis of the issues. We believe this is a mistake and a Conservative Government would work with the G20, the United States and the European authorities to look at how the “Volcker rules” could be implemented internationally."