February 28th, 2009 There are clear parallels between the response of our current prime minister Gordon Brown to the scandal in the City and how the great archetype James Hacker responded to rumours of a similar scandal years ago on the classic BBC series Yes, Prime Minister. Both believed the best response – and the [...]
February 27th, 2009 Sir Fred Goodwin, a fit man aged only 50, thinks that he deserves £693,000 annual pension for life, starting from the date of his official departure from RBS, despite the enormous financial destruction he has wrought. If an average person wanted to receive such a pension, they would have to build up [...]
February 23rd, 2009 . In a press release unveiling a multi-million sponsorship deal with Indian cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, dated September 18th, 2008, the Royal Bank of Scotland did not spare the superlatives. John McCormick, who ran the bank’s investment banking activities in Asia, was quoted as saying: “Every now and again, a player appears [...]
February 23rd, 2009 Why is Andy Hornby looking so pleased with himself in the above photograph? Could it be that, in agreeing to a takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB last September, he had found a way of passing on a poisonous legacy onto a pair of credulous fools, at the same time as finding [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: February 15th, 2009 This charade of apology is a diversion from bankers’ role in financial destruction EDITH Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” seems to be the theme tune for Britain’s banking fraternity right now. The unfab four – Lord Stevenson, Andy Hornby, Sir Tom McKillop and Sir [...]
February 12th, 2009 James Crosby: cavalier approach to risk Sir James Crosby – a man last seen driving an eco-unfriendly “Chelsea tractor” with blacked out windows out of the gates of his home in Beckwithshaw, on the outskirts of Harrogate, North Yorks – has taken a hammering of late. The attempts by Lloyds Banking Group [...]
February 10th, 2008 Sir James Crosby – what’s left of his reputation now? Image from 24 Dash It was a case of “we’re sorry but we’re not to blame” at the Treasury Select Committee hearing on Tuesday morning. The four erstwhile titans of finance got in their “unreserved apologies” soon after proceedings got underway, but [...]
February 9th, 2009 “The curious incident of the dog in the night time” is a phrase from the Sherlock Holmes detective story Silver Blaze. The dog’s failure to woof wasn’t seen as a clue by many. But it was by Holmes. He realised that the dog’s very silence spoke volumes. In this instance, he deduced [...]
February 6th, 2009 There’s a wry piece in last Saturday’s Guardian in which the newspaper’s interviewer, Simon Hattenstone, visits Scotland in the hope of soliciting an apology from Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland. Despite showing impressive ingenuity in his quest, Hattenstone fails. But there are some nice [...]
February 4th, 2009 Professor Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist and author of Globalization and its Discontents, has said that the UK would should let its failed banks go bust rather than continue to throw good money after bad. This is even more true given the latest rumour that RBS actually lost £1.8 billion on [...]