Firefighting the bankers

In terms of the cash involved, the controversy surrounding Fred Goodwin’s £650,000 a year pension is a mere footnote to the massive RBS bailout announced this morning.  But, politically, it could be far more damaging for the Government.

Their attempted solution to the problem is beyond parody – as Alistair Darling revealed this morning, the banking Minister, Lord Myners, has left a message with Goodwin that the pension doesn’t look good and asking whether he could decline some of it.  Goodwin hasn’t yet replied.

Despite all the tough talk on bonuses, this lazy firefighting hardly creates the impression that the Government’s cracking down on corporate failure.  And when you couple it with, say, the James Crosby fiasco, it threatens to tie Brown ‘n’ Darling even closer to the whole damn mess.