Driving home from White Hart Lane on Sunday evening, I half-expected to discover there had been a ram-raid on the Southgate branch of the Bank of Cyprus.
North London is the heart of the British Cypriot community and most people have strong links with their homeland.
So you can imagine the widespread alarm across the manor at the news that the government in Nicosia had decided to confiscate people’s life savings as part of a bailout programme aimed at preventing the collapse of the euro.
The Bank of Cyprus has thousands of customers in this country. And although depositors in Britain have been assured their savings are safe, would you take the chance? In Cyprus, all banks and hole-in-the-wall machines remained closed yesterday to prevent withdrawals. They will stay shut until Thursday at the earliest.
TV news showed pictures of JCBs being crashed into the front of banks as frustrated locals made desperate attempts to get their money out before it can be stolen by the government. They don’t do orderly queues in the Mediterranean.
Against this background, who could blame any worried depositor who decided to stove in the front of the North London branch with a second-hand Mercedes?
More... Markets steady as Cypriot government softens bailout plan to raid savers' accounts British government STOPS pension payments to expats in Cyprus so government won’t seize 10% tax for EU bank bailout Investors brave the storm and dive into Europe. Are European funds a bargain or still too risky?Like the euro, the assurance that overseas customers of Cyprus-based banks will not be affected isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Inevitably, Britain has been dragged into this latest crisis, even though, mercifully, we are not part of the calamitous single currency.
It’s not just our Cypriot cousins in this country who have cause for concern, it’s the 3,000 British military personnel and their families based on Cyprus, along with assorted civil servants and an estimated 60,000 ex-pats who have made their homes there.
Most members of the Armed Forces bank locally because it makes their lives easier day to day. So do the majority of the ex-pats, many on fixed retirement incomes.
Protest: In Cyprus, all banks and hole-in-the-wall machines remained closed yesterday to prevent withdrawals. They will stay shut until Thursday at the earliestYesterday’s Mail featured some of their horror stories, as they face having up to ten per cent of their savings wiped out. The British Government has promised to underwrite any losses incurred by soldiers or civil servants.
But the ex-pats are on their own. They will just have to take the hit.
We are told that the decision to confiscate savings was taken under pressure from the Germans, who are sick and tired of having to bankroll bankrupt members of the eurozone.
They should have thought about that when they relaxed the rules to allow — nay, bribe — unsuitable, Fantasy Island economies to join the doomed one-size-fits-all political project.
It was inevitable that tiny Cyprus, like its larger neighbour Greece, would run into trouble, just as it was inevitable that blameless ordinary citizens would suffer the consequences of their political leaders’ vanity.
It was inevitable that tiny Cyprus, like its larger neighbour Greece, would run into trouble, just as it was inevitable that blameless ordinary citizens would suffer the consequences of their political leaders' vanityMind you, it’s one thing when the eurocrats impose harsh austerity measures on countries such as Greece and Italy to prop up the single currency. It’s quite another when they start robbing people’s life savings.
Ever since the dominoes of the banking crisis began to tumble, we have been told that lessons have been learned, it will never happen again, blah, blah, blah.
It all began in Iceland with the Banki Hanki Panki. Then Ireland’s Banky Fiddly Diddly went belly up, followed by Spain’s El Banco Collapso.
Now it’s the turn of the Banko Kleftiko to find itself kebabbed and thrown on to the charcoal grill, innit?
In Cyprus, arrogant eurocrats are trying to disguise their own culpability by turning zillionaire Russian oligarchs into the bogeymen.
Most of the hyper-rich former Soviets swanning around the Mediterranean have close links to PutinThis could be a big, big mistake. Admittedly, vulgar, wealthy Russians have stuffed their ill-gotten into the, er, relaxed Cyprus banking system and monopolise the harbourside bars with their pneumatic, peroxide molls — a considerable source of resentment among locals.
But it’s hardly their fault that the country’s gone bankrupt. Their billions actually help prop up the wobbly Cypriot economy. It’s a brave man who decides arbitrarily to confiscate a Russian wise-guy’s bank deposits. Most of the hyper-rich former Soviets swanning around the Mediterranean have close links to Putin and whatever the privatised KGB calls itself these days.
We could be talking poison umbrellas here, as a basis for negotiation. Does the name Alexander Litvinenko not ring any bells in Nicosia? I bet the Cypriot President hasn’t been daft enough to entrust his own pension to the Banko Kleftiko.
And never mind the Russians. In the old days, foreign politicians wouldn’t have dared to steal from the British Army.
Just imagine if a band of brigands had descended from the hills and tried to hijack a wages van bound for a British base on Cyprus.
They’d soon find themselves staring down the barrel of a Browning.
So what makes the Cypriot government think they can get away with robbing British soldiers’ bank accounts? And why isn’t there more outrage from our own Government?
Those of us who warned against joining the euro were rubbished as neanderthal Little Englanders intent on standing in the way of progress.
But this is how it ends, with politicians stealing your life savings. Fortunately, we didn’t join but we’ve still got enough financial problems of our own.
If Cyprus gets away with this scandalous act of grand larceny, who is to say it couldn’t happen here one day, especially if Britain is stupid enough to re-elect a euro-fanatical, tax-spend-and-borrow Labour or Lib-Lab Coalition government?
Ed Balls is no doubt watching developments in Cyprus with relish. Let’s hope he’s wearing a bib.
We’ve already had a taste of things to come when Northern Rock went pear-shaped. Can you, hand on heart, really feel confident that you won’t wake up in the not-too-distant to find every bank and ATM barred shut?
Should that day ever come, your best bet is to buy yourself a second-hand JCB and hope for the best.
There has been a worrying development in the war between fox-hunters and saboteurs. According to a report at the weekend, animal rights activists are to start using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track illegal hunts.The League Against Cruel Sports says it has already begun test flights and a full-scale deployment is ‘imminent’. According to a report at the weekend, animal rights activists are to start using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track illegal hunts Using drones sounds a bit drastic. Pepper sprays, false trails and hunting horns are one thing. But what if the Sabs start firing laser-guided rockets to take out Range Rovers being driven by Masters of the Hunt? Pretty soon the whole thing could escalate into an Afghan-style war.How long before the Countryside Alliance decides to retaliate with surface-to-air missiles?In no time our English green-and-pleasant could come to resemble the Tora Bora mountains. Next thing you know the Sabs will be using helicopter gunships and the Berkeley Hunt will be scrambling squadrons of Typhoons to take them out.Welcome to War Horse 2013. Tally ho! Arise, Sir Jimmy... More from Richard Littlejohn... RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: When they said fight them on the beaches, Dave... 27/05/13 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Toytown jihadists and a lack of political willpower 23/05/13 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: The paying public are sick and tired of being ignored and patronised. So who are the real swivel-eyed loons? 20/05/13 The truth at last! Peter Mandelson admits Labour 'sent out search parties' to bring migrants here after losing the votes of the working class, writes RICHARD LITTLEJOHN 17/05/13 So that's why they called it an oil rig! 16/05/13 When did an 8-month jail sentence become eight weeks? 13/05/13 We're riding along the crest of a rave: How far is Julie Bentley prepared to go in order to make the Guides more 'relevant' to 21st-century Britain? 09/05/13 Arrest first - ask questions later: How dawn raids and ransacking houses became standard operating procedure 06/05/13 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Proof no good deed ever goes unpunished 02/05/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEGiven their enthusiasm for pursuing celebrities for historic sex crimes, will the police be investigating with equal vigour the well-publicised multiple rape allegations against leading members of the Socialist Workers Party?
Meanwhile, in another exciting development, scientists working for something called the Lazarus Project have managed to bring an extinct frog back to life using new gene technology.
They now believe it might be possible to revive other extinct species, including the dodo. If they are successful, detectives hope it will finally be possible to bring Jimmy Savile back to life and put him on trial.
Stick 'em up! This lizard is loadedIt began as a dispute over unpaid parking fines and ended with a motorist being sent to prison for eight months.Shane Burton was sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court for threatening to shoot two bailiffs who were clamping his car.They told the court that he pointed what they thought was a gun at them and shouted: ‘Get away from the car or I will shoot you.’ They hastily removed the clamp and drove off.Burton admitted threatening them but denied he had a gun. He said he picked up the first thing which came to hand — a toy lizard — and pointed it at them.Judge Michael Stokes QC said: ‘We cannot have people, even with a pretend object, pointing them at bailiffs, threatening to shoot them and chasing them down the road.’As the judge said, the bailiffs were only doing their job. But, even so, eight months for possession of an offensive toy lizard does seem a bit harsh.Still, just as well it wasn’t a toy crocodile. He could have got eight years.On Friday, I reported on the TUC’s claims that any family of four with an income of £29,000 a year was living ‘on the breadline’.
That same day came news of a survey which found that people earning just over £24,700 are happy to describe themselves as ‘middle class’.
Make that ‘living on the ciabatta line’.
