Financial Regulatory Forum

BIRMINGHAM, England, April 12 (Reuters) – Britain’s ruling Labour Party published its policy programme on Monday for the May 6 general election.

Following are some of the main points made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and finance minister Alistair Darling in response to reporters’ questions about the manifesto:

* PRIME MINISTER BROWN

SELLING STAKES IN PART-NATIONALISED BANKS

“We will gradually move these companies back into the private sector.

“Every single penny that has gone into the banks will be returned to the people of this country.”

BANK LEVY

“I’m confident that we can persuade other countries to join us in a multilateral levy. I believe if banks were consistently having to pay a tax in this country that was not levied in other countries, that would create a problem for the City of London.

“We don’t want a race to the bottom or double taxation. That’s why we’re taking a sensible course of cooperation with other countries and we hope to announce something on this soon.”

– The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

By Chris Hughes

LONDON, April 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Takeover law doesn’t usually rub shoulders with health, education and taxation as a big issue in elections. But spurred on by Kraft’s emotionally-charged takeover of Cadbury, the UK’s ruling Labour party has made reforming M&A a key plank of its agenda for a fourth term in office. Sadly, its heightened interest in the market for corporate control has generated mainly bad ideas.

The worst of the proposals are to make any change of control dependent on two-thirds of shareholder votes, and to examine disenfranchising investors who buy shares after a company has become subject to bid interest. Both ideas violate fundamental principles of shareholder democracy. There is no good reason why a bidder should not control a target company once it gets a simple majority for its offer. Likewise, it is ridiculous to detach voting rights from shares just because a company is in play.