The government has been too timid about confronting these failed financiers. It's time that it showed some teeth.
Assuming it is out of the question to hang, draw and quarter Sir Fred Goodwin, pluck out his intestines while they are still warm and wriggling, stuff them into his greedy mouth and then display his severed head on a spike at the Tower of London, could we settle for shooting him instead? Yes, I know, I'm going soft.
Not as soft, mind you, as the politicians who merely condemn him. Gordon Brown calls it "unjustifiable and unacceptable" that the man who led RBS to ruin should refuse to give up a pension worth in excess of £650,000 a year. Peter Mandelson today escalates the government's outrage. In my interview with the business secretary for the Observer, he calls Sir Fred "obscene". Trouble is that I doubt being told that he is an obscenity, even when the name-caller is such a grandee as Lord Mandelson, will cause Fred the Shred to lose much sleep. If Sir Fred had a pound for every time he has been called something rude, he'd be ... well, he'd be as ludicrously rich as he already is.
Politicians can use whatever adjectives they like to deplore this banker and his wretched ilk for demanding gargantuan rewards for abject failures. The issue is, what is to be done about it? Bankers are hated by the voters, universally pilloried in the media and their excesses have been condemned by every political party from the SWP to the BNP and all points between. And yet still they don't give a damn.
Exhortation and condemnation is wasted breath unless it is accompanied by action . . .Full story HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment