Scotland Loses the Noble Prize

Edinburgh is now going to lose the merchant bank Noble Group. Reported in Das Herald Sturmer (DHS) today:

Noble’s Scottish roots abandoned with buyout

In the article Sir Iain Noble, whom I've met and who seemed a very agreeable sort, was described as a 'controversial financier'. Is this because he supports Gaelic and Scottish independence one wonders? DHS's journalist Tim Sharp refers to the outgoing chairman Ben Thomson as a "supporter of Scottish independence" and points to the supposed irony that Thomson: "has been a champion for retaining a strong Scottish financial sector."

Now, Das Herald Sturmer is rightly proud of its Scottishness. Whilst reading Sharp's article I really did get a strong sense of irony. A story which is really about Scotland losing another finance HQ to London is dressed up as a hypocritical 'Nat' story (election is not far off now) by a hack whose title is 'City Editor', pfffff. Sharp practise indeed by little Timmy.

Something else is missing from the article. There's no mention of all the cheap taxpayers's money Brown is dishing out to banks. We know, thanks to John McFall, that every bank in Britain is insolvent and the entire financial services sector with it so where is the money coming from to buy the Noble Group? Yes, the taxpayer. Rabbit-hole economics people!

The article does point out something interesting though. It seems that Thomson and the Noble brothers sold their shares in the company in January 2008. Did they see the 'credit crunch' coming? Good for them. Now, with that extra cash swilling around can they not buy Das Schottishman from Johnston Press and give us cybernats a holiday from countering union propagandists?