Making Labour government policy

From the ever-excellent Sam Jones at FT Aphaville

Darling would like to keep the short selling ban in place for two reasons:

Firstly, because by and large the national media does not understand short selling and prefers to label it as some kind of destructive speculation: banning it is a policy move taken straight from the tabloid songbook.

Secondly, because even if falls in bank share prices do not necessarily make the banks any more likely to collapse, they do get people talking about them as if they are (just look at all the fevered talk about nationalisation that has preoccupied the commentariat this week). This in turn puts pressure on the government - who naturally want the banks’ shareprices to be a bit more stable so it looks like they’re handling the situation well and so Simon Jenkins writes nicer things about them. This is thus a policy move taken in response to the broadsheet songbook.