From just two articles in one Sunday newspaper on 1st July 2012:
"Venal / Shameless / Greedy / Reckless / Predatory / Shocking / Corrupt / Fraudulent / Criminal / Morally-bankrupt / Selfish / Shoddy / Deceitful / Rapacious / Havoc-wreaking / Warped / Rogue / Renegade / Monstrous / Cheating / Conspiratorial / Scamming / Colluding / Manipulative / Incompetent / Scandalous / Excruciating..."
All of these adjectives were used to describe bankers and not, surprisingly, George Osborne, who attempted to gain the morally higher ground this week by suggesting that all of the naughty things that went on with Barclays and other banks happened while Ed Balls and Gordon Brown were cosying-up to the City, and certainly not "on his watch".
For a few days (or for considerably longer, if Dave gets his way) the media shit-storm over the revelations of Libor- and Euribor-fixing will bury all of the truly awful news about the economy. Plus ca change. But at least it's giving that funny little Cable-guy an opportunity to step into the quasi-limelight for a minute and come up with curious damnations of City traders, like "...moral quagmire of almost biblical proportions..." OK, I'm not a bible scholar, but the only quagmire I can recall is the muddy residue into which the Egyptians got stuck once the Red Sea had re-folded and whilst it could be argued that the Egyptians were a tad immoral...the quagmire wasn't.
And now it looks almost inevitable that we'll have a public "Inquiry".
How utterly pointless. For the last couple of years, the regulators have been putting the finishing touches to their report; the one that has highlighted all of the skullduggery (there's a good, old word that could have been used in the articles) over rate-fixing. The only surprising thing is that the report hadn't been leaked. Everyone that is anyone in the City and in its regulatory frameworks knew it was coming, too. The FSA was fully aware of the findings of the Barclays Capital issues at the same time as they 'approved' Bob Diamond as a fit and proper person to be CEO of the Barclays Group in January 2011. That's a bit like the UN authorising the appointment of Robert Mugabe as its Director of Human Rights.
In the past - say, pre-1995 - Public Inquiries served a purpose but nowadays, everything is so utterly 'public' anyway, that they serve only to line the pockets of lawyers and allow the broadcast and print media to put on pantomimes for everyone to boo and hiss at villains like the Murdochs and Tony Blair, and cheer the Steve Coogans and Hugh Grants that are paraded, falsely, as heroes. The televising of things like the Leveson Inquiry and Select Committees haranguing anyone and everyone cheapens our democracy and makes redundant the real issues that should be in the 'public interest'.
So, here are ten matters upon which we should have Public Inquiries and then that'll be that.
1) Wind-farms: Just who are these bastards that are making money out of sticking turbines on their land; how much are they making and from whom?
2) Big, Fat Gypsies: Why are there so many television programmes that begin with the words "Big Fat Gypsy" and why does Channel 4 fail continually to place a comma after the word "Big"?
3) Latin: Gove should dump his idiotic idea to bring Latin back to the classroom...deus vult?
4) Lords Spiritual: Twenty-six reasons for reform of the House of Lords to be discussed.
5) Summers: These now occur only in March and September in Britain. Why has the Government allowed this to go on?
6) Association Football: Professional footballers appear to be paid weekly - surely this is an anachronism. This P.I. can also cover the issue of the negative effect of hair replacement on national football team strikers.
7) The Duchy of Cornwall: Why is the Prince of Wales operating his business from across the Bristol Channel; and is it more than just about original biscuits after all?
8) Celebrity Lists: The formulation of definitive criteria for lists from 'A' through to 'Z' needs regulation.
9) Spheres: Should every form of communication in the modern world be described with words that have the suffix, "sphere'? How will this impact the Inquiryshpere?
10) Public Inquiries: A public inquiry into public inquiries.
After these inquiries are done, everything that needs to be known will be made available to the public at large via Twitter. At least that way, the reports and findings will be restricted to only a few hastily chosen words, preferably composed by Jack Dee, Nick Motown or Councillor Steven Bridgett of Northumberland County Council.
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