Mandy and the Lloyds/HBOS merger

Lloyds Action Now (LAN), an association of shareholders set up to recover their losses as a result of the merger of Lloyds with Halifax Bank of Scotland, has uncovered the "something" that always smelled to high heaven about the deal.

Seems Mandy, then Business Secretary, withheld evidence that could have changed the outcome of a vital court case in the run up to the merger. The evidence submitted to a Competition Appeals Tribunal in the Autumn of 2008 and later the Scottish Court of Session failed to mention the trifling matter that HBOS had been secretly funded to the tune of £25.4 billion in Emergency Liquidity Assistance.

"The evidence submitted by Lord Mandleson was the subject of a secrecy order which means that no-one who was a party to the case can reveal what it contained", said Adrian Lithgow, spokesman for LAN. "That does not prevent them from saying what was not in the secret dossier, and our sources are adamant there was no mention of the £25.4 billion. The implications are astounding".

Well, the fact that Mandy might have lied falls a long way short of astounding. More astonishing is that the perpetrators public servants involved did not get a super injunction to prevent all mention of the matter, as they can uniquely in Britain, where freedom of speech has been abolished along with national sovereignty, habeas corpus and all those other silly things people used to believe were their inalienable heritage.