NewsBurst: 10:16 G.M.T.
EuroBank has just announced an across-the-board ten percent increase in the bank base lending rates. This has prompted sighs of relief from all the major fund clearing houses, but is expected to provoke an angry response in the House of Commons, and subsequently in the European Parliament, where it is perceived as a gamble with political suicide. The increase will be the first result of the crisis that the public at large have experienced, and will affect almost ten million mortgage-holders immediately, with repayment increases in excess of 200% likely within days.
The announcement comes on top of panic-selling of GEC-Plessey shares on the basis of rumours that the electronics giant had overextended itself in the Soviet market and was about to come under threat again from a Gorki-based consortium. Suggestions of an alliance with British Aerospace or Amstrad have been discounted by spokespersons for those companies.
Shares fell sharply from their opening prices, but recovered slightly half an hour into trading when buying programs were activated by unprecedentedly low prices. The DTI has not yet released details of its Emergency Economic Rescue Package, but an announcement from Downing Street is expected this afternoon.
In Moscow, the Politburo released a sharply critical statement, accusing several Soviet-based multinationals of placing personal gain ahead of the public good, and of forgetting their socialist origins. None of the companies concerned had anything to say in response to this accusation.
NewsBurst: 11:25 C.M.T.
Catastrophe has struck the Stock Exchange in the past hour, with the revelation that IBM is definitely cooperating with the Soviet MGF consortium and Cola Corporation. Following the IBM takeover of Mercury, the company responsible for running the SEAQ dealer network, confidence in the very medium of trade has collapsed. It is considered likely that details of confidential bids are being piped direct to hostile corporate computers. While this “outsider dealing” is definitely in breach of the law, it cannot yet be proven and by the time DTI inspectors and Scotland Yard have established the facts, many companies will be in receivership.
It is reported that the main Tandem fault-tolerant mainframes in use by Barclays de Stoat Fader have become infected by a virus which is systematically downloading all their files into SEAQ. The blatant data piracy has shaken the board of directors, who are expected to announce a suspension of trading by the UK’s biggest investment house in less than half an hour’s time.
Chaos has hit the international exchange rates, with the ECU falling to 43 Kopeks, a completely unprecedented collapse. The FT100 index at 11:00 G.M.T. stood at 1892, its lowest level in ten years.
President Jackson has scheduled his big speech for 13:00 G.M.T., which will be covered by this data channel.
The initial effect of the rise in interest rates has been a massive drop in the cost of housing. Prices in the high street chains have fallen by up to 60% in one morning, and reports of estate agents engaging in suicide pacts have been coming in. Pedestrians are advised to be careful about venturing out on foot in the Square Mile and the Docklands Enterprise Zone, where eight suicides by jumping have been reported this morning so far. The London Underground’s Northern Line was reported to be at a standstill, with a record four bodies on the line in two hours.
The parliamentary Opposition has tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, and is predicting a defection by large numbers of back-bench Thatcherite MPs. Fears of an incoming hard-left government have done nothing to allay share instability in the system; the Opposition remains committed to a massive program of re-nationalisation, wage and price control, and other policies which in the light of the events of this week can be expected to be massively popular with the electorate.
NewsBurst: 12:07 G.M.T.
Amstrad and News International Group have been bought out by Yegor Ligachev Technologies of Novosibirsk, a relatively obscure hydroelectric power project whose fluidity has been massively augmented in the European markets by the behaviour of their commercial big brothers. Rupert Murdock and Alan Sucrose were unavailable for comment, but an unattributable source has stated that Mr. Sucrose is to be offered the Managing Directorship of Sony. With the loss of these two multinationals, the entire UK television industry is now concentrated in the hands of Soviet-owned companies.
A vote of no confidence in the government has been scheduled for 13:30 this afternoon.
Reports are coming in of the lynching of two bank managers in Stoke-on-Trent by customers angered by the rise in mortgage rates. Labour councils in the Northwest are said to be considering a general buy-out offer for all mortgage-holders unable to sustain re-payments; in return for title to the properties, the councils are offering to maintain the occupants as sitting tenants in normal council accommodation.
The Trades Union Congress has called for an immediate one-week General Strike in those industries affected by Soviet takeovers, in an attempt to “poison the pill.” General Secretary Todt had this to say:
“We’re not going to sit around while them Russians take over our—our entire livelihoods. It’s not right! People’s jobs are at stake and we can’t just sit here while the foreigners move in. Europe is one thing, but the Soviet Union, the Americans, they don’t care for our way of life. They don’t know what it is to be British.
“We say that by striking now, we can make our companies so unattractive that the Russians will ’ave to scarper. But we got to do it now, because if we leave it t’KGB’ll be through Congress House like a dose o’ salts inside a month, you mark my words. I know them people.
“I call on the government to back our strike. It’s not they we’re striking against, it’s these foreign loan sharks who’re buying up t’country. If they use the trades’ union legislation they’ll be shooting themselves in the foot.
“Strike now, while it’s not too late! Strike a blow for British Industry!”
NewsBurst: 13:38 G.M.T.
President Michael Jackson shocked the world half an hour ago with his announcement that American corporations, with his approval, had signed a joint policy agreement with the Soviet MGF consortium. “This is a major breakthrough in international policy relations,” the President sang to a mesmerized audience of his fans. “We have the opportunity to forge a lasting bond with our Russian friends and secure peace in Europe forever. We should not let such a thrilling opportunity slip through our hands. What has Britain ever given us besides George the Third, Hitler, and the discovery of Heroin? My fellow Americans, I call upon you to forget the Cold War, forget the old fears, and embrace the future with open arms. Nothing less than our share portfolios are at stake here, and our Russian friends have just offered us the deal of the century!”
The President then answered questions and sang an encore from Off the Wall before leaving in a convoy of carnival floats escorted by a National Guard regiment in pink tutus. Throughout the conference he was surrounded by Secret Service men disguised as zombies and Disney dwarves, presumably to deter enraged British expatriates from attempting to assassinate him.