Tories: "Let's give them a hard time. They're all foreigners."

Those pesky foreigners have been up to no good again. But luckily, three erstwhile Tory MPs were ready and waiting to give them a hard time.

I just wonder if the reception given to credit ratings agencies by the Treasury Select Committee would have been warmer if they had been British....?

London prides itself as an international financial centre but some MPs noted “they’re all foreigners” amid other insults as they privately disparaged the three main credit ratings agencies ahead of a parliamentary committee hearing this week.

Representatives of Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings came before the Commons Treasury select committee on Tuesday during hearings into financial stability and transparency in the wake of the Northern Rock debacle.

Before the hearing, three Conservative committee members began discussing the upcoming interrogation unaware their remarks were being picked up by the microphones on parliamentary TV. Michael Fallon, a former schools minister and the leading Tory on the committee, turned to Graham Brady and Peter Viggers, and said: “We must be as rude as possible to the credit agencies”, and that “they’re an absolute shower”. One MP said: “They’re all foreigners”.

More at FT.com.