Sir John Gieve - a man of most extraordinary incompetence , blended with dishonesty and ignorance

SIR JOHN GIEVE : Well first of all we did, we did see something coming. We did spot the global imbalances, we worried about them.

We did spot some crazy borrowing going on, asset prices looking unsustainable and we said actually for a couple of years before the crash that a correction was coming.

PESTON : But you didn't, you didn't stop some of this crazy lending.

JG : We, but we didn't think it was going to be anything like as, as, as (sic) severe as it's turned out to be.

BBC Panorama The Year Britains's Bubble Burst text broadcast Monday 23rd December 2008 i Player

That's Sir John Gieve - ex Permanent Secretary at the Home Office during tenure of Jack Straw (until 2001), David Blunkett (2001-2004), and Charles Clarke (from 2004).

“Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, reported to Parliament today that the Home Office had not maintained proper financial books and records for the financial year ending 31 March 2005. Sir John Bourn therefore concluded that, because the Home Office failed to deliver its accounts for audit by the statutory timetable, and because of the fundamental nature of the problems encountered, he could not reach an opinion on the truth and fairness of the Home Office’s accounts.”

UK National Audit Office report, Home Office: 2004-05 Resource Account 31st Jan 2006

This was Sir John Gieve who presided at a meeting in his office with David Blunkett - represented by Mrs Gieve, and his wife a solicitor when he was found to be mis-using Government funds and had misused the system for obtaining a visa for his mistresses maidservant.

This was examined by the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration 12th January 2005 Hansard

Q908 Mr Liddell-Grainger: We are talking about vested interests and interests in all this. Can I ask about your wife's involvement as a firm of solicitors with David Blunkett's case? Do you think that you, as permanent secretary, should have put your interests forward? You had to set up the inquiry, it was very much your baby (for want of a better word) and do you think you should have said to your wife's firm of solicitors that you thought it was getting too complicated and maybe have moved it on as well? Do you think you, personally, could have handled that slightly better?

Sir John Gieve: The inquiry was absolutely not into David's access dispute and there has been no suggestion that the Home Office should play any role in that or pay for it in any way. I think it is entirely up to David who he chooses as his solicitor. I do not think there is a conflict of interest in that respect.

Sir John was also involved in an exchange of letters when John de Menezes was murdered with Sir Ian Blair. Full details Monday, November 19, 2007 Blair / Blair how the IPCC were illegally kept out of investigation of the murder of De Menezes and also Thursday, August 02, 2007 22/7 Sir Ian Blair told lies from the start to the IPCC

Sir Ian Blair ex Commander of the met sent a letter to Gieve (which was curiously dated 21st July) , and is obviously properly dated 22nd July... it states ..." In the meeting we had with the Prime Minister yesterday " ...presumably in the aftermath of the 21/7 "bombings".42 minutes after the murder of de Menezes, both the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (Blair)and the Prime Minister (Blair)were able to (quite illegally) keep the IPCC off the case.

Baklir said he wouldn;t et the IPCC become invloved . Sir John wrote back with the delightfully ambiguous reply ;

We agreed that we could not sensibly discuss the form of investigation while the counter terrorist operation is still underway. As I explained , I do not believe Section 17 can be suspended as you suggest.

Which allowed evidence to be lost and destroyed , altered, stories to be agreed on, officers to collude in writing up their notes ... it is also evident that he tried to stop their involvement altogether if what Lana Vandenberghe who worked for the IPCC says of letters she saw at the Commission about how the facts of the Jean Charles de Menezes were being misrepresented to the public were true - as she explained to Fergus Keane on BBC 4's Taking a Stand today is true.

Having fucked up big, big style at the Home Office, without any knowledge of banking, economics (although a scion of the family behind the tailors Gieves and Hawkes) and a frightful record of accounting at the Home Office he was moved sideways to the Bank of England.

Those unlike Lord Patel ,who has been following his disastrous career first heard of his role when Nortehrn Rock hit the rocks. It then emerged Sir John had been on holiday for two weeks in mid-August when the Bank was told of the problems at Northern Rock. ..and that's where he stayed. Un flappable ...er.. unaccountable. see Monday, September 24, 2007 Northern Rock Redux - Wisdom in hindsight, paralysed by inaction at the Treasury, and indecision at the Bank

Well he tells us ...." We, but we didn't think it was going to be anything like as, as, as severe as it's turned out to be. "

He is scheduled to leave the Bank sometime next year .. next week wouldn't be soon enough.

PS : It's also time the wanker Lord Mogg at OfGEM was given the opportunity to spend more time spending his various and very substantial pensions.

PPS : Another failure for Sir John Gieve at the Home Office NOMIS - see Saturday, August 23, 2008 LIDS / NOMIS / OASys - The Home Office systems that are on the edge of collapse - are PA the dog to kick or should it be Sir John Gieve ? Again ?