October 5th, 2011 David Cameron displayed an astonishing lack of understanding of the banking sector in his interview with Sarah Montague on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Tuesday morning (as I’m afraid did Sarah, given her blinkered obsession with “bonuses”). If Cameron’s stumbling performance was due to ignorance, then it’s simply inexcusable. If [...]
February 8th, 2011 Project Merlin, the wizard scheme originally dreamt up in 2010 by ex-Barclays chief executive John Varley and RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton, in the hope of appeasing the government and drawing a line under the “banker bashing”, has descended into farce. The project started with the legitimate hope from the bankers that, [...]
November 13th, 2010 Mark Fisher, the low-profile “blustery Yorkshireman” and petrol-head, who was renowned for his ability to imitate the sound of a revving Ferrari when serving as henchman to Sir Fred Goodwin at the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2000-09, has fired more people than perhaps anyone else in history. As Nils Pratley explained [...]
Blog post revised and retitled October 3rd, 2010 A fourth person has been arrested in relation to Thames Valley Police’s investigation into “corruption and large-scale fraud in connection with HBOS”. [Note: comments on this post have now been disabled and earlier comments from witnesses have been removed as a result of the police investigation "Operation [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: January 25th, 2009 Government hopes that its latest raft of measures would persuade banks to start lending to each other again – and thus kickstart the economy – seem, so far, unfounded. So why are institutions reluctant to throw the cash around … and what will it mean [...]
October 13th, 2008 (updated September 19th, 2012) Lord Dennis Stevenson, the former chairman of HBOS, last year gave a remarkably revealing interview to Melanie Reid of the The Times. Speaking to Reid, and in a remarks to mental health conference in Glasgow, Stevenson admitted he has been a long-term sufferer from depression. To my mind, [...]