How sad am I? I spent an entertaining couple of hours yesterday watching the Commons' Select Committee quizzing Barclays Chief Exec, Bob Diamond, and the thing that came through most strongly was the intellectual gulf that separates a world-class executive from a bunch of MPs relishing their moment in the spotlight. Diamond well and truly did them over - they didn't manage, despite their whingeing and bleating, to lay a finger on him.
Their rudeness was quite remarkable, matched only by their arrogance. Had their 'victim' been the CEO of RBS or Lloyds then they might have had some argument for their approach - after all, the state owns a large proportion of those banks - but Barclays managed very well, thank you, without state support. For me that means that those MPs had no right whatsoever to whinge about Barclays bonus payments. For as long as Barclays remains free of state funding, the way it pays its staff is its own business - if it gets it wrong then that's a matter for its Board and its shareholders, and no-one else. If you were an investor, who would you rather have looking after your money, Mr Diamond with his track record, or a bunch of here-today-gone-tomorrow MPs?
None of this should detract attention from yet another failure of the coalition. I seem to recall that the banks were going to be squeezed until the pips ran dry over the issue of bonuses, but the ever-smug and arrogant Gideon 'George' Osborne's statement yesterday seemed to miss that bit out. As ever, high on rhetoric and devoid of substance.
After Diamond's performance the BBC, never one nowadays to stress content over style in its news coverage, did some voxpops with the Great British Public. Most of them focused on 'these bankers have had government money but are still paying huge bonuses', without any attempt to point out that Barclays hasn't had any of our dosh. Why spoil a good story by sullying it with a few facts? Personally, I'm more worried about the huge amounts of taxpayers' money being squandered by the increasingly sloppy Beeb than I am about the seemingly very well run Barclays Bank!
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