Opportunity Cost

I've just about had it with Opportunity Cost arguments...

Even the Guardian annoyed me this week with its "...How many nurses and teachers and firefighters can we get for Stephen Hester's bonus..." crap. This is really cheap, hacking journalism because things just don't work that way, do they? If they did, then Osborne or Cable or Dave would have simply sacked Hester (but they couldn't because that's not how it works either), employed another twenty-five teachers and scored a media victory that would be forgotten in five minutes or until they attempted to sack another quasi-public servant.

Hester's Bonus
Equals How Many
of These?

What about spending the £27 million that Danny Boyle has been authorised to squander on the Olympic Opening and Closing ceremonies? Bloody hell!...that'll be about a thousand nurses then, won't it? Or a few hundred new doctors that will save five thousand lives over ten years (which will add at least the £27 million to a later social security budget as the people they saved were all morbidly obese type 2 diabetics that needed gastric band surgery that should have just died anyway as nature might have intended). Or maybe the £27 million could be spent on three new prisons, each of which could accommodate five hundred scumbags, thus saving "taxpayer's" being burgled again; not that any intrinsic value could be placed on the safety of citizens from their point of view. So that wouldn't make sense in an opportunity cost argument, would it? £27 million to provide temporary peace of mind to one hundred households. One hundred households could be supplied with razor-wire fences, alarms and rottweillers for a fraction of that cost.

That's how ridiculous the opportunity cost argument is, and will always be. Because it's not about value...it's about relative value. And the relativity is more often than not completely arbitrary depending upon who is making the relative comparison. OK, the monetary value of Stephen Hester's bonus would (after tax) be sufficient to pay the salaries of a few dozen key public sector workers. But Hester's bonus, should he choose to eschew it, would not automatically be returned to the public purse and Hey! Presto! there's fifteen nurses and ten primary school teachers the following day. Most of our politicians believe that the opportunity cost argument plays well with the electorate, and I don't blame them for thinking this because we all use the argument from time to time. For example, I've just paid three hundred pounds to get my car serviced. For three hundred pounds I could have bought groceries for four weeks thus ensuring that, for the month of February, I wouldn't starve. What isn't included in that specious argument is the real chance of my brakes failing on the moor road over to Alnwick in the snow that has just fallen tonight with the sure and certain outcome of death from the plunge into the boulder-strewn valley two hundred feet below. The one thousand pounds that I chose not to pay for life assurance premiums in order that I could buy a new i-Mac would then seem to have been a poor opportunity cost decision.

Notwithstanding these arguments, there is a place for opportunity cost, but only in the outrageousness of the relative and presumed value of some things, like:

The Next CEO of RBS?

1) Stephen Hester's Salary (not bonus) would cover Wayne Rooney's wages for about five matches. This isn't really an opportunity cost argument in view of the unlikelihood that Hester would ever put on a Manchester United shirt (in order to play for Ferguson as opposed to just dressing up) and the even more ridiculously unlikely scenario of Rooney being appointed as a CEO of a public company or a state owned bank (although that might prove to be hilarious in these miserable times). The obscenity of Premiership footballers' wages is...let me see now...er, obscene? The value, relative or otherwise, of Hester's contribution to the nation compared to that of Rooney might well be open to debate but for the latter to paid more than six times that of Hester and, while we're on, five hundred nurses worth, seems to me to be utterly fucking nuts.

Two Hundred Nurses
Could Sleep Here?

2) The equally utterly incomprehensible daubs, structures and "installations" by the likes of Hirst and Emin and other GBAs, sell for millions of pounds. Madness. I don't blame the "artists". Good luck to them. If the idiotically rich arseholes that are prepared to pay that sort of money just so they can own something that some other stupid billionaire jealously desires, get a kick out of it, then who am I to judge. Well, I'm the "man in the street" that wants to judge. Here's one of the few instances where opportunity cost makes a bit of sense. A painting, or a bird on a stick, or a pile of soiled bed linen or a white brick on a white floor in a white room attracts a rich bastard's cheque book for no other reason than to prove that his or her cheque book is bigger than someone else's. That's not art. That's just showing off. Why don't they 'show off' by paying the wages of fifty nurses or firefighters? It might make some other stupidly rich twats pay for the wages of one hundred nurses or firefighters just so they can show off even more. Or maybe buy three lifeboats. Philanthropy isn't quite dead yet, but it's on life support, as far as I can see.

Opportunity Cost
Finally Explained...

3) The law. If you have ever been in a situation that has required legal advice and paid the fees that are associated with it then you will know about opportunity cost. And the opportunity you will have wished for is, usually, to have not sought legal advice. Law is important. It underpins society in many ways. It protects citizens and deals with those that operate outside of it. But for both private citizens and bodies corporate it is just so unimagineably and unconscionably expensive! Lawyers, on the whole, cannot afford to have a conscience and this leaves them able to afford everything else (including silly works of art and, if we're lucky, lifeboats and firefighters). The law appears, to the lay person, to operate to serve itself. One precedent leads to another, etc., and thereby, one lawyer leads, inevitably to several more to argue the precedents that each have established beforehand. Big fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite them; little fleas have smaller fleas...and so on...ad infinitum. The opportunity cost argument is lost when it comes to the law, because the cost is as unfathomable as the opportunity might become and therefore cannot be calculated in the spurious currency of nursing or firefighting...

4) Finally, The Department for International Development is the subject of one of the most trenchant arguments on opportunity cost. The UK Government commits hundreds of millions of pounds each year to DFID, which is spread around the globe on "worthy" causes in the "Third World". The "Third World", these days, includes some former and current UK Commonwealth countries with a GDP that we'd probably kill for ( and probably do) and, here and there, nuclear weapons capability. Oh, and poverty. It's probably the one and only macro-economic opportunity cost argument that makes any real sense. The dispensation of aid to some of these nations is pointless, occasionally dangerous and serves little purpose bearing mind that the majority of it is spread around for political capital and a lot of the money simply lines the pockets of despots and warlords. And it would pay for few hospitals, let alone the nurses to work in them, and most of the fire and rescue service and quite a few lifeboats.

Whilst I've had it with Opportunity Cost arguments generally...there are a few that make sense. So I don't rest any case here. I just think it's too easy for Government and Opposition to use the arguments to score political points and we should be wary of things like the Hester Bonus / Nurse arguments that may add up on the front page of the press but don't stack up at all in the real economy.

There - I've gone all serious. This could be the end of the blog....for ever.

Oh! Danny Boy(le)...

Less than six months to go, then, before we are forced to embrace the horror of it all. Gradually, the nation's consciousness is being infested with the wretched London Olympic Games.



£2,012 Ticket - Child's Play

 So far, there have been a few cock-ups but nothing that has sent the media into meltdown over the stupididty of it all. Even the ticketing stories have been down-played, including the nonsense of making babies have tickets, which almost had the Daily Mail and Mumsnet looking to Lord Coe for compensation for those families stupid enough to have bought tickets, and then deciding to have a baby in the interim. How loony of the olympic organisers to have arranged for the period between buying tickets and the games themselves to be greater than that of human gestation. Will they never learn...?

But now we have some information leaked about the opening and closing ceremonies. These are being directed by film-maker Danny Boyle. I'm sure that Danny Boyle is an accomplished artist and director; I've enjoyed many of his films, and loathed a few. But is he the right man for this job? Only time will tell. In 1948, the London Olympic Games were launched by a post-war austerity ceremony of a couple of military marching bands and the release of a few hundred pigeons that probably went on to shit all over tourists in Trafalgar Square. But these days, especially after the absurd ostentation of Beijing, there seems to be a willy-measuring contest going on every four years.


"My Island is Full of Noises...
and riots, and phone-hackers,
Murdochs, Camerons and
othe really scary things

What is Boyle cooking up? Well, the strap line seems to be "Isles of Wonder". This, according to Boyle, has been inspired by Shakespeare's Tempest, and the line in the first act of the Bard's work, "Be not afeared, the isle is full of noises". Boyle has, apparently, been equally inspired by Caliban's "deep, deep devotion to it [the isle]", and wishes to respresent our own deep, deep devotion to Britain through this vehicle...for around about £27 million. What a luvvie. Boyle's partner in this obscene waste of public money is Stephen Daldry, who will be overseeing the artistic delivery. Daldry said that the "Isles of Wonder" ceremonies will encapsulate the "...heritage, diversity, energy, invetiveness, wit and creativity that define the British Isles...". Bollocks. Right now, and probably in the summer, the things that do (and will) define the British Isles are "...recession, poverty, irresponsible capitalism, international intervention, celebrity culture and phone-hacking..." OK, I know that's unfair because there are also plenty of examples of Daldry's definitions around too but the view from abroad is rarely observed through such privileged, rose-coloured spectacles as his. And let's face it, given the number of people that Cameron has pissed off lately, there will be a lot of nations out there looking forward to the Boyle/Daldry presentations falling flat on their arses...or worse, no matter what might be said diplomatically.

Thankfully, there's still time for Boyle to change his approach. Instead of being 'inspired' by Shakespeare, he could do a lot worse than directing the olympic ceremonies based on his own back-catalogue (ignoring the dire, but nontheless inspiringly tiltled 'Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise'.)

Here's the alternative "Danny Boyle Spectacular" for London 2012:


True British Representatives

 Four scumbag Glaswegians, off their collective skulls on smack, go to London to deal heroin. They find themselves in Trafalgar Square where, through a bizarre set of coincidences, they climb upon the fourth, vacant plinth for a little sleep and then the plinth collapses and traps all of their left arms for 127 hours. One of them manages to shit in his sleeping bag and while trying to free his arm, releases the quilted shit-storm over the pigeon-feeding assembly (to the tune of 'Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag' from Mary Poppins). Everyone in the assembly contracts a viral disease from the shitty sleeping bag and then, 28 Days Later, they die and are all buried in a Shallow Grave. Only one pigeon-feeder survives; a young Indian boy. In a remarkable finale, he is asked, by Boyle himself, the ultimate question: " 'The Isle is full of noises' is a quote from which play by Shakespeare?" The Boy must choose from four options. A) The Tempest, B) King Lear, C) Kiss Me Kate or D) Up Pompeii. He'd phone a friend but he hasn't got a phone and has no friends, because he's a poor slumdog.

Eighty thousand people at the Olympic Stadium wait. Their breath is bated. Sweat pours from every pore. Even one-month old babies - in their own seats - are silent in anticipation. The indian boy finally chooses... 'A'! The stadium erupts. The cast of Boyle's drama all begin vacuuming naked in a Daldry-realised representation of paradise. (OK, it was too good to miss out...sorry)

It has been rumoured that Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, the ballerina Darcy Bussell and the band, Take That, are being courted as potential partcipants in Boyle's rubbish. On that basis, the boy band lads could quite easily be Begby, Sickboy, Spud (Robbie Williams) and Renton. Bussell is a shoe-in for the slumdog, Elton for Dick van Dyke and Macca as Chris Tarrant.

Job done. Let the games begin...

Lost Labour's Love?

Poor Ed Miliband. 

According to some poll or other this week, the Labour Leader is now less popular than just about everyone else in UK politics, or maybe even the most unpopular man in the UK after Ant and/or Dec. I don't know and neither do I or the rest of the country really give a shit, even though we should, given that having an effective opposition is a really good idea in a democracy. But, if he ever had it, has he now lost Labour's love, despite having the quality that Shakespeare described in his play of a very similar name?

"A man in all the world’s new fashion planted, that hath a mint of phrases in his brain."

Or is it (again from the pages of the same work) that...

"He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument."

How Many Days Left as Labour Leader?

It would be wrong to suggest that being the Leader of the Opposition is easy, particularly during these difficult times when it's hard to come up with any solutions at all to the mess we're in. And Ed's problem goes beyond where Opposition used to be - which was the automatic gainsay of the party in power - given that everyone is more or less 'centrist' with a small lean either to left or right. So Ed has to differentiate himself and his party by the finest of margins and yet still be seen to be offering a credible alternative.

I kid you not - he's THIS big!

Regrettably for Ed, he is also so easily lampooned. Silly voice, stary eyes, inappropriate hand-movements, repetitive rhetoric...the list goes on and is underpinned by the unfortunate fact (for Ed) that his more accomplished sibling is just waiting in the wings and is a man that really does have a staple in his argument that is far finer than his verbosity; along with the fact that Hilary Clinton probably wouldn't like to shag Ed. All the while that Ed searches fruitlessly for his credible alternative, it's just sitting there in the form of his electable older brother, as if David was Dorian Gray and Ed, the portrait, becoming more distasteful and horrific by the day.

Having been a Labour voter all my adult life, I cannot honestly recall a party leader as inept and embarrassing as Ed. And I can remember Michael Foot! Even Jim Callaghan and Gordon Brown occasionally elicited positive and passionate reactions. Blair was almost wonderful until he discovered money, Roman Catholicism and the networking opportunities available to war...sorry, peace envoys . Neil Kinnock might have been Welsh, ginger and fell over on a beach with Glenys and said something like "Wurrorrite" too many times on a podium back in the day but at least he had some guns to which he stuck. And John Smith...ah! if only...  

There must be a few people that are employed at Labour Party HQ whose sole role it is to follow Ed around paying him compliments, assuring him that he really is electable and managing his self-esteem. If there isn't such a harem of toadies, then how could Ed possibly continue as leader of the party against the background of such appalling press comment and parliamentary sketches.

What maketh this man, the Right Honorable Ed Miliband, MP, Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, and the youngest Labour Party Leader since WW2?

"You will say EXACTLY what I told you to say...capiche?"

Well, to begin (and might as well end) with, like just about everyone else in the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet, Ed has never had a proper job, unless you count a very brief association with television journalism. Maybe he should have stuck at that a bit longer so that some producer or other could have told him what an arse he comes across as on the telly. But no, like all of his colleagues, he became a policy wonk, most notably for Hariet Harperson, and after a few years policy-wonking and a couple of semesters teaching economics at Harvard, he emulated his big brother by bagging a safe Labour seat in t'North, at Doncaster. Oh, how the Donnie faithful must have cheered as a plummy-mouthed, lapsed-Jewish southerner, barely out of nappies, became their representative at parliament. Blair and Brown gave him some lovely jobs and then when Brown became leader, Ed was elevated to the Privy Council as Minister for the Cabinet Office. In 2008, Brown compounded his earlier error by giving Ed the new portfilio of Energy and Climate Change whereupon the deluded Miliband promised to cut our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 rather than the Kyoto-agreed 60%, or the more realistic 0%. That said, he did manage to change policy on coal-fired power stations after being harangued by the late and greatly lamented Pete Postlethwaite, in a scene a bit like when  the "Lumley Protocol" got dumped upon the odious little Phil Woolas. And then, after Brown was booted out of Downing Street and the stage was set assuredly for David Miliband to ascend to the leadership...there came the real "What the fuck just happened..?" moment of twenty-first century British politics and Labour became largely unelectable. To be fair to Ed, though, apart from David, the other choices for the leadership weren't that spectacular.

So what should Labour do now? It isn't that easy to get rid of a party leader, no matter how much they'd like to. The Labour Party constitution presents several hurdles to get over and lots of voting to be done. Then there's the damage that would undoubtedly come from the press, even though most of the political correspondents might agree that Ed is a mistake. The politcial capital to be made and invested over many years by the Tories would be massive and might even secure Cameron a second term just on its own.

And even if Labour were able to jump these fences and not crash in an ignominious heap on the other side, who on earth could take on the mantle? Here are some of the current crop of choices:

Ed Balls: Could the party contemplate another Ed and, worse still, one that has tacitly agreed with Osborne?

Yvette Cooper: Ed's partner, so more Ed Headlines. Probably not.

Harriet Harperson: Labour must be ready for a full-time female leader but the suggestion is that she might just have had enough.

Byrne - "...this is my
Vladimir Putin...like it?"

Liam "Sorry, there's no money left" Byrne: You can't do that and expect to make it to the top job. It may have been marginally funny but politics is a serious business that knows where its bodies are buried.

Caroline Flint: Took on Ed's old portfolio and rose without a trace.

Sadiq Khan: Unproven shadow Lord Chancellor. It's bad enough being a shadow Secretary of State but a shadow 'Lord'. Credibility issues.

Chukha Umunna: Clever guy but even Yvette, in her role as Minister for Equalities might have to wonder that, although Labour might be ready for a woman at the helm, the inconvenient truth may be that the party isn't quite prepared for it's 'Obama moment'?

Hilary Benn: Not quite his dad, really, is he?

Take That! Ya Tory Bastard!

Step up, then, the scourge of Murdoch! It's Tom Watson! OK, he was censured a bit during the expenses scandal because he claimed £4,800 in one year for food but he's a big lad. Not quite your Eric Pickles but he probably takes some feeding. Apart from that, the Deputy Chair of the party and Ed's Campaign Director is arguably the man most likely to succeed and, amazingly, is an MP for a constituency (West Bromwich) that is not too far from where he grew up. OK, he's never had a proper job either but plus ca change. Of course, it will be a little unseemly, if not downright back-stabby, for Ed's campaign man to campaign against Ed, but politics is as dirty as it is serious. Cameron would quake at the prospect of the hard line that would be taken by Watson at PMQs...OK, I made that bit up.

Buckle up, everyone...twenty years of Tory rule awaits...

Droit de la France

There appears to be one huge difference between Marine le Pen and Nick Griffin, ignoring things like gender, intelligence, personality and credibility, and that is that about a thousand times as many people seem to be prepared to vote for her Front National (FN) in this year's French national elections than would contemplate casting a ballot for the BNP here. So why is she as popular as Griffin isn't, bearing in mind that the BNP grew from the National Front in Britain? Is it about Le Pen and Griffin or is it about us and the French? After all, the policy documents of the FN and the BNP are remarkably similar...

Marine Le Pen

Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, who is the now the honorary chairman of FN but was once its leader, was long regarded as an odious little arse and, in the long run, turned out to be as unelectable as Ed Miliband will be. But his daughter Marine is an altogether different proposition. Smart, savvy and, let's face it, a bit of a looker, she is a lot of things that Sarkozy isn't and the FN is rapidly becoming what their advertising says; "The Voice of the People, The Spirit of France". The more that Sarkozy fawns over Merkel, the less pleased are the French with the whole European thing, especially as Merkel was unable (or unwilling) to stop France's credit rating being downgraded. (Just as an aside, is there anyone or any organisation that rates the rating agencies? I mean, how come Standard & Poor call the shots on everything credit-related? Who says it has to be them? Why can't it be the IMF, or Gordon Brown now that's got time on his hands. Or maybe Tony Blair could set up a rating agency as part of Firerush to get more money for Cherie.)

Le Pen wants France to withdraw from the Euro (and the Eurozone) by going back to the Franc on a par value basis to begin with - 1 Fr = 1 Eu - and then let economics take its course. She cites the UK as the example in Europe of successful independence from the single currency. She also wishes to withdraw from NATO, the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank. Indeed, she appears to wish that France simply withdraws from the world. Well, it would make a difference from capitulation. Internally, her policy documents also advocate a secularist approach based on a very sensible law passed in France over one hundred years ago on the separation of church and state.

Alex Salmond - Favoured
Anniversaries - like Le Pen?

However, the one thing, above all else, that makes the bigger headlines is her party's stance on immigration, both legal and illegal. If you believe here in Britain that we have a major issue with immigration then I suggest that you travel around France. It's not that the French are sociologically racist so much as they have become very insular. Ever since De Gaulle embraced the idea of European co-operation (a defensive approach bearing in mind most French voters in the sixties had vivid memories of the second world war), there has been a growing tide in French public opinion that all this 'being nice to our neighbours' malarky isn't really how they'd like to be. And it would appear now that Le Pen and FN are riding a wave on that tide. Like Alex Salmond of the SNP, Le Pen has a keen sense of history. Salmond would have a referendum on Scottish independence on the seven hundredth anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn and Le Pen has harnessed the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Jeanne d'Arc. For many French citizens, Le Pen is nothing short of a latter day Maid d'Orleans.

Putting to one side Le Pen's desire to withdraw from NATO, her detestation of organisations that interfere with France's sovreignty is not a million miles away from Cameron's approach to Europe and the wider world (except the USA, of course). Her approach on the economy could be decribed as 'Osbornist' (but let's hope that this never becomes a word) and she wants to dump the Euro in favour the Franc. Although viewed as a little extreme, I imagine that her immigration policy might just resonate even with the centre-right here in the UK. All in all, Le Pencould be seen as a potential ally for the Tories once they see off the coalition at the next general election and stamp all over Labour; an inevitable outcome should the morons at 39, Victoria Street continue to think it's a good idea to have Ed Miliband as leader.

Griffin - UK Le Pen? Non!

It is almost unconscionable for the vast majority of us in the UK to consider Nick Griffin and the BNP as a viable alternative in government and yet, in France, Marine Le Pen and the FN look like they could be. The BNP might be scouring the citizenry of Britain right now for the go-to far-right babe to replace 'Nasty Nick'. Le Pen is the bete noir of the intellectuals in France. Her heartlands are the industrial regions where her messages of patriotism and a state paternalism worthy of Kim-Jongs, are being received with enthusiasm against the backcloth of rising unemployment and a loathing of external interference from Europe and, in particluar, the still AAA-rated Germany. We need to watch our step. The small surge in support of the BNP a few years ago dissipated quickly but could easily rise again. If Le pen succeeds, even just into the run-off ballot in France, some green-eyed Brits may look over the channel and wonder...

Hester's Bonus

Stephen Hester is one of the easiest targets in the UK...isn't he? Yes, of course he is. It's just so easy for Miliband to berate any old banker and easier still to have a pop at one that is attempting to do the impossible with an organisation that the uneducated believe is "owned by the taxpayer". That's just bollocks. The state has a huge stake in RBS and that stake looks pretty miserable just now; but to suggest that "the taxapyer" owns 83% of the bank is crassly idiotic. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that any taxpayer will get any money out of the government's bail-out of RBS so let's not pretend that we, as ordinary tax-paying citizens, will ever have a stake. (cf. Osborne's give away of Northern Rock)

Ed Miliband - Having an orgasm
at the thought of Hester's poverty

Hester shouldn't become the bete noir, either.  I used to know his dad, and he's a nice bloke. Actually, Stephen Hester isn't such a bad bloke either. OK, he's quite rich and all that but honestly, he's not a complete shit. Miliband isn't so thick as to ignore the easy target, though. Hester can't have a bonus and Goodwin can't keep his knighthood. Easy-peasy. Now can I be Prime Minsiter, please, voters? No, you can't. Fuck off you stupid little arse. But maybe your brother could, as he might be able to put together a shadow cabinet that has some credibility by dumping the odious Balls and Cooper partnership and appointing Ken Livingstone as shadow secretary for "anything at all" to prove that the left really can be the left, after all. Although I live over three hundred miles from London and therefore have less of a stake in the capital than any taxpayer might mistakenly believe he or she may have in RBS, I'd just love Ken to do Bo-Jo over in May. But back to Hester...

Hester - Perhaps I shouldn't
have ridden out like this...really

He's a bit fat and quite bald...and maybe just a little bit posh. But so is Julian Fellowes, and the latter got a peerage just for being posh and writing some fatuous crap about what it used to be like to be posh. Hester hasn't done that. All he's done is try to sell the crap bits of RBS and attempt to maintain the good bits. Is it Hester's fault that he's trying to run a bank that the government (Cable) is continuously bad-mouthing, so much so that he hasn't the slightest opportunity to raise the share price in the face of the politically-driven diatribes? Hester is in the ultimate no-win position. He's the CEO of a huge organisation that the majority of the public believe (mistakenly) that they own, drawing a salary that, compared to most CEOs of 'public' companies that don't have a government kicking the shit out of them every day, is quite paltry. Give the man a break.

OK, Hester could probably walk away with a few million and never have to worry again about things like getting the washing done, buying a car, having a mini-break in Paris, getting the carpets replaced or riding to hounds. You know, the sort of things that most of us regard as luxuries. But he hasn't run away, despite the fact that Miliband, Cameron and...er...what's his name...oh, yes...Clegg, want him shamed for even thinking about a performance related bonus which, under the terms of his contract, would be worthless if he screwed up anyway, bearing in mind it would be in RBS shares.

There are better targets for public opprobrium, most of which can be found in either "in the back" in Private Eye or in any of the columns written by George Monbiot.

If Hester resigns in the next few weeks then I wouldn't be in the least surprised and I wouldn't blame him. If he doesn't, then I'll applaud him for hanging on there. Being the CEO of RBS has to be one of the shittiest jobs going...even for £1.2m a year, which is a fraction of what Goodwin earned when things appeared to be easy a few years back.

I used to be rabid old Trot; mellowed into communism and then just good old socialism, but I don't think that whipping Hester is the answer. I have a suspicion that even Polly Toynbee, Simon Jenkins and perhaps even Mark Steel might agree...but I haven't asked. Everyone hates a rebuke...

Sir Fred...aff wi' his heed?

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, as do so many things that subsequently come back to bite the arse of the idea's author and in this case the idea came from Gordon Brown, in all probability. You see, back in those heady days on the early 21st century when there was no more boom-and-bust and your average investment banker just had to look at a screen of figures and make a squillion quid in a heartbeat, everyone was so happy. And who made everyone happy? Why, investment bankers, of course! And who was the banker that delivered the greatest degree of delirious mirth and joy? Why, the mirthless and joyless Fred Goodwin, of course! And even before it seemed like (yet another) good idea, this time to measure the nation's happiness, New Labour felt it was necessary to reward the creators of happiness and contentment. What better way then to so reward, than to place the dour Scottish accountant in front of Her Maj for a good dubbing. Oh, how Gordie must be wishing now that her sword had slipped. Miliband (Ed) now calls for Goodwin's metaphorical decapitation.

Happier Days?

It's so easy to criticise after the event. Brown wasn't the first (and won't be the last) politician to keep company with and later award the 'great and the good' only for them to turn out to be not so great and, in the end, not very good after all. Plus ca change.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was a tremendous success story until it suddenly wasn't. RBS represented everything that was brilliant about the UK's financial services industry and the City of London in the noughties. Profits (real or, ultimately, imagined) ran into billions of pounds. Shareholders made millions in dividends. The bank even paid corporation taxes! RBS swallowed up other banks and finance houses and brought them into line with the exceptionally wonderful business models that Goodwin oversaw with his sturdy rod of iron accountancy. And then he was discovered to be a megolmaniac shagger that didn't actually know what a mortgage really was, let alone an SDO. And neither did the rest of the RBS board.

So Goodwin (and Lady Joyce) now live in 'disgrace'. That's the sort of disgrace, by the way, that means a meagre income of around £400,000 a year in pension and probably some other money. But the Leader of the Opposition has decided to heap upon that disgrace the ultimate ignomony of a review by the Honours Forfeiture Committee.

As all politicians say, pointlessly, at some point in their careers, "...let's be clear about this...". The Honours Forfeiture Committee has a brief to meet "at least once a year", to determine whether anyone that has received an honour (that the committee itself decided upon at some point in the past) should forfeit that honour because the recipient:

• has been found guilty by the courts of a criminal offence and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than three months; or
• has been censured/struck off etc by the relevant regulatory authority or professional body for actions or failures to act which are directly relevant to the granting of the honour.
• ...or both



Heywood (L) and Kerslake - Shirty?

Although many observers might think that Goodwin should have been sent to prison or banned from any of the professional bodies that he might be a member of related to his honour...he wasn't. The Honours Forfeiture Committee - if they ever meet to discuss Goodwin's case - will have to decide on the current Knight's fate based upon popular opinion, ethics and the morality of it all. So they probably won't. After all, whatever decision they take, they could face opprobrium given the revelatory nature of histories rewritten. Might be best to leave it alone?



The Forfeiture Committee is the responsibility of the Cabinet Secretary and the Head of the Home Civil Service. These roles (both of them) used to be held by Sir Gus O'Donnell. Now they are separately owned by Sir Jeremy Heywood and Sir Bob Kerslake, respectively. So two knights may be obliged to decide on the future of another, but to what ultimate point?

It seems that everyone hates Goodwin apart from Lady Joyce, perhaps, but one imagines that she might not be holding the same torch that she may have done before the former RBS CEO's super-injunction was quashed. Goodwin has come to represent everything that is demonised about the excess of global 'casino' banking (maybe that could become a 'Cableism' - hope not). It's hard to imagine what Goodwin does with his time these days, even if you felt like doing so. By all accounts, Goodwin was motivated by power, not greed. Megalomania is probably a condition that is somewhere on some psychiatric spectrum and can be treated with drugs. Who knows, maybe he's taking some. Maybe he's about to emerge as the ultimate apologist for the City's recent excess and become a philanthropist. Maybe he wants to buy new tents for the 'Occupy London' protestors so that Boris Johnson can't refer to them as 'crusty'. Maybe he's suffered enough? Do we really need a scapegoat to be dragged to the Cabinet Office in a tumbril and stripped of any remaining dignity along with his knighthood? Are we not better than that? Have we not the moral courage to understand what happened to the man...swept along by a misplaced belief that nothing could possibly go wrong and that he was, ultimately, the saviour of mankind?

Nah. Aff wi' his bastard heid...the bampot scunner...