Dear Listener

I hate to disappoint (and will the person near the back who shouted ‘why break the habits of a lifetime’ please sit down) but I have it on the highest authority that there is no silver bullet.

Chief Executive Ian Livingston says BT will share its cable ducts with rivals but warns “I doubt this will be a silver bullet to get [optic] fibre to every home”. (The Sun 9 February). And BP’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward said he wanted “a diverse supply of energy [because] there are no silver bullets.” (The Independent 5 February).

When the Financial Times editorial warned “There is no silver bullet that will create a more robust financial network where big banks can safely fail” (Financial Times 1 February 2010) it was only echoing Bank of England Governor Mervyn King who told MPs “I do not think any proposal is a silver bullet that will overnight solve the problem.” (Treasury Committee uncorrected evidence 26 January 2010). A warning that should be heeded by Chinese economists who see “a property tax as a silver bullet to alter some of worst aspects of China’s increasingly unequal economy” (Financial Times 7 January 2010).

Away from finance Sam Lister said the public believed that a gastric band “may now be a silver bullet escape from years of overweight misery” (The Times 21 January 2010) Only to be contradicted by Mella Frewen, director general of the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union, who said that when it came to obesity “there’s no silver bullet” (Financial Times 27 January 2010).

Nor does it provide technological fixes. “The chip and pin system was hailed as the silver bullet that might finally stem the rising tide of credit and debit card fraud [but] several aspects of card fraud continue to spiral” (Express 11 January 2010). And Ben Wallace, ex-Qinetiq worker and a Conservative MP, warned that body scanners at airports are not “a big silver bullet” (The Independent 5 January 2010).

It does not deal either with global political problems – like closing Guantánamo Bay. John Horgan director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism, praised a Saudi scheme for de-radicalising terrorists but added “The idea that this is a silver bullet is naïve” (Sunday Times 10 January 2010) and top mathematician Marcus de Sautoy admitted “science has failed to come up with a silver bullet to mitigate global warming” (The Times 16 December 2009).

Back in the UK the Scottish Government’s Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon warned on alcohol abuse “we have never claimed minimum pricing is a silver bullet” (The Times 30 December 2009) and the top US commander in Afghanistan dealt it a final blow when he told a Congressional committee “the sober fact is that there are no silver bullets” (The Guardian 9 December 2009).

So if a silver bullet cannot get optic fibre to every home, provide limitless energy, solve the banking crisis, cure obesity, stop credit card fraud, detect bombs at airports, reform terrorists, end global warming, prevent alcohol abuse, or win the war in Afghanistan we have to ask what use is it? Well, it does kill werewolves. But they don’t exist either.

AND IN THE ‘SEARCHING FOR SILVER BULLETS’ EDITION OF MONEY BOX THIS WEEK…

We investigate the company which claims to have a silver bullet to get your loans and credit card debts written off. But does it work? A question for its boss, live on air, after we present the evidence.

We find out from the human Wikipedia of Mortgages if the silver bullet has been found to reinvigorate the housing market.

And ask why the banks have still not found the silver bullet to make cash ISA transfers happen instantly – or at least in less than a working week.

The producers tell me there is no silver bullet to pack even more into our 24 minutes on air. See if they are right by listening just after noon on Saturday, or nine pm on Sunday, or on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox at any time. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, subscribe to our podcast – 117,000 of you did that in December – and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say – on silver bullets of course!

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

PPS Would a silver bullet be heavier or lighter than a lead bullet of the same size and shape? Who used them to shoot bad guys? And why? Answers next week. And no Googling (or other-search-engines-are-available-ing)!

e-mail Paul Lewis