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Bingley
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Bingley is a market town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, in West Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, the town has a population of 19,884 according to the 2001 Census, reducing to 18,294 at the 2011 Census. Local travel links include Bingley railway station in the centre and Leeds Bradford International Airport. The B6265, connecting Bingley to Keighley, runs through the town centre, historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bingley appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Bingheleia. Bingley was probably founded about the time of the Saxons, certainly its name is Saxon in origin, Bingley was founded by a ford on the River Aire. This crossing gave access to Harden, Cullingworth and Wilsden on the side of the river. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Bingley is listed as Bingheleia, with the following entry, Gospatric iiij car tra e ad gld. tra ad ii car Ernegis de burun ht. Silva past ii leu lg & i lat, tot m e iiij leu lg & ii lat Which roughly translated reads, In Bingheleia, Gospatric has a manor of four carucate of land to be taxed, land for two ploughs. Ernegis de Burun has it and it is waste, in the time of King Edward the Confessor it was valued at four pounds. Woodland pasture two leagues long and one broad, All the manor is four long and two broad. The ford was superseded by Ireland Bridge, in medieval times Bingley was a manor which extended several miles up and down the Aire valley, extending upstream to Marley on the outskirts of Keighley and downstream to Cottingley. Bingley became a town with the grant of a Market Charter in 1212 by King John. According to the tax returns of 1379, Bingley had 130 households. The nearby towns of Bradford, Leeds and Halifax had about half this population, at this time Bingley was the largest town in the area. No records tell of how Bingley fared in the Black Death that swept Europe in the 14th century, approximately one third of all the people in Europe died of this plague, sometimes wiping out whole towns and villages. According to the 1379 Poll tax records, the town of Boulton had no survivors worth taxing. It seems Bingley may have got off relatively lightly, in 1592 Bingley was shown on a map by Yorkshire map-maker Christopher Saxton as a single street with about 20 houses on each side. The church sits at the west end of the street opposite a large house
2.
Asset
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In financial accounting, an asset is an economic resource. Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce value, simply stated, assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash. The balance sheet of a firm records the value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business, one can classify assets into two major asset classes, tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets contain various subclasses, including current assets and fixed assets, current assets include inventory, while fixed assets include such items as buildings and equipment. Intangible assets are resources and rights that have a value to the firm because they give the firm some kind of advantage in the marketplace. Examples of intangible assets include goodwill, copyrights, trademarks, patents and computer programs, an asset is a resource controlled by the entity as a result of past events and from which future economic benefits are expected to flow to the entity. One of the most widely accepted accounting definitions of asset is the one used by the International Accounting Standards Board, employees are not considered assets like machinery is, even though they can generate future economic benefits. This is because an entity does not have sufficient control over its employees to satisfy the Frameworks definition of an asset, similarly, in economics an asset is any form in which wealth can be held. The accounting equation is the structure of the balance sheet. It relates assets, liabilities, and owners equity, Assets = Liabilities + Capital Liabilities = Assets − Capital Equity = Assets − Liabilities Assets are listed on the balance sheet. On a companys balance sheet certain divisions are required by generally accepted accounting principles, Assets can be divided into e. g. current assets and fixed assets, often with further subdivisions such as cash, receivables and inventory. Assets are formally controlled and managed within larger organizations via the use of asset tracking tools and these monitor the purchasing, upgrading, servicing, licensing, disposal etc. of both physical and non-physical assets. Current assets are cash and other assets expected to be converted to cash or consumed either in a year or in the operating cycle and these assets are continually turned over in the course of a business during normal business activity. There are 5 major items included into current assets, Cash and cash equivalents – it is the most liquid asset, which includes currency, deposit accounts, short-term investments – include securities bought and held for sale in the near future to generate income on short-term price differences. Receivables – usually reported as net of allowance for non-collectable accounts, inventory – trading these assets is a normal business of a company. The inventory value reported on the sheet is usually the historical cost or fair market value. This is known as the lower of cost or market rule, prepaid expenses – these are expenses paid in cash and recorded as assets before they are used or consumed
3.
Government of the United Kingdom
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Her Majestys Government, commonly referred to as the UK government or British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the Prime Minister, who all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, the government ministers all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Under the uncodified British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the prime minister, the Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. They also exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments, the current prime minister is Theresa May, who took office on 13 July 2016. She is the leader of the Conservative Party, which won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in the election on 7 May 2015. Prior to this, Cameron and the Conservatives led a government from 2010 to 2015 with the Liberal Democrats. A key principle of the British Constitution is that the government is responsible to Parliament, Britain is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament and this constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215. Parliament is split into two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the House of Commons is the lower house and is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House in which they sit, they make statements in that House and take questions from members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords, since the start of Edward VIIs reign, in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected member of Parliament and therefore directly accountable to the House of Commons. Under the British system the government is required by convention and for reasons to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. It requires the support of the House of Commons for the maintenance of supply, by convention if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held. The support of the Lords, while useful to the government in getting its legislation passed without delay, is not vital, a government is not required to resign even if it loses the confidence of the Lords and is defeated in key votes in that House. The House of Commons is thus the Responsible house, the prime minister is held to account during Prime Ministers Question Time which provides an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject
4.
Bradford & Bingley
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Bradford & Bingley plc was a British bank with headquarters in the West Yorkshire town of Bingley. The branch network was rebranded Santander on 11 January 2010 and the Bradford & Bingley name now solely relates to the section of the bank. In May 1997 the Society bought Mortgage Express from Lloyds TSB for £64 million, the issue had not been helped when TPG Capital, who had previously agreed to take a 23% stake in the Company, withdrew their support. Due to the effects of the crunch, in September 2008 the companys share price dropped to a record low. On 25 September they announced that 370 jobs were to go, the bank had also been seeking options from the Financial Services Authority and the government to secure the future of the company. Options included selling the company to bank or nationalisation. With Bradford & Bingley being nationalised, the structure was already in place from the involved in the nationalisation of the Northern Rock bank in February. The European regulators approved the governments plan for Bradford & Bingley after just 24 hours. There were reports from sources that Bradford & Bingley was to be nationalised in its entirety. On 29 September 2008 it was announced that the Spanish Santander Group would acquire all of Bradford & Bingleys £20 billion savings business, Santander paid £612 million, including the transfer of £208 million of capital relating to offshore companies. Bradford & Bingleys 197 retail branches,141 agencies and related employees were transferred to Santanders subsidiary Abbey, the mortgage book, personal loan book, headquarters, treasury assets and its wholesale liabilities were taken into public ownership and closed to new business. When the shares closed on 26 September they were worth 20 pence each, valuing the bank at £256 million, in March 2006 the bank had been valued at £3.2 billion. In November 2008 the government set up a new company, UK Financial Investments, to manage the shareholdings in Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingleys shareholders were not reimbursed for their shares which the government had taken over. Over 300 shareholders complained to the UK Shareholders Association that they had not received information relating to the fate of their holdings, clokeys assessment was published on 5 July 2010, finding that shareholders were not entitled to any compensation. On 11 January 2010, the business of Abbey and Bradford & Bingley was renamed Santander UK plc. Alliance & Leicester was rebranded at the end of November 2010, on 25 January 2010, the European Commission approved the state aid given to the bank. On 24 March 2010 UKFI announced the merger of the business with the bad bank of Northern Rock. The two businesses were merged together under a holding company, UK Asset Resolution, on 1 October 2010
