英伦广角 Issue 128 布朗誓言起诉冰岛政府（在线收听）

It's 30 years since the so-called Cod Wars. The relations between London and Reykjavik are almost as frosty now as they were then, with the prime minister using the most undiplomatic of language and threatening to sue the government of Iceland.

We believe that, and I think everybody at least home will agree that the Icelandic authorities are responsible for this. We'll do what we can, working with local authorities to help. And I think we, as the government, are doing the responsible thing. We are holding the Icelandic authorities responsible with demanding that the money be paid back to the local authorities. (Through Legal action?) And we are prepared to consider all forms of action including as we did, attempting to, and freezing assets.

The problem is that it's not only Iceland's banks that have crashed. Yesterday, the British government used anti-terror laws to freeze the assets of those banks. But now, the Icelandic government is in fact defaulting. "Totally unacceptable!", says Gordon Brown, threatening legal action something Iceland's prime minister is keen to avoid.

Legal action is something that is always available. That's one way of civilizing, excuse me, it's one way of setting disputes in a civilized manner, go to courts, but I don't know we're...we're hoping and planning to try to resolve this issue in good cooperation with the UK authorities.

More than a hundred local authorities placed large sums of money on deposit with Icelandic banks. The total amount is hundreds of millions and could be as much as a billion pounds. That money is needed to revive the goods and services run by local councils. The local authority leaders say they can't guarantee those goods and services unless they get their money back.

Until we've actually looked to the implications, for each local authority, the sum is very large and it will be a small amount in the total context of the budget; others, it will be a much greater impact. We still haven't assessed that fully...

And then there are the police authorities, who also invested in Icelandic banks and now stands to lose the best part of 100 million pounds.

The government's now embroiled in a huge row with the governments of Iceland. But while ministers say they're doing what they can to help local councils retrieve those missing millions, they are also asking question what on earth you have been doing with tax payers' money. The councils reply "we invested it in banks that we thought were safe."
 
But safe? They were not. And Gordon Brown is making it crystal clear that he expects the government of Iceland to underwrite the debts of its banks and to pay up.

Glen Oglaza, Sky News.