Mob rule isn't the answer
There's always a risk that justified popular outrage spills over into yobbery and violence. That's what happened in the early hours of this morning in Edinburgh when vandals and car of disgraced former Royal Bank of Scotland boss, Fred Goodwin.
Whatever the anger at Goodwin's massive pension and his role in destroying a once-proud bank, smashing the windows of his home and Mercedes is hardly a proper -- or legal -- response. Mob rule is not the answer to irresponsible bankers.
Perhaps politicians (and the media) bear some responsibility for personalising the banking crisis round Goodwin and turning him into Britain's most hated banker. Maybe it made such an attack inevitable because in the current fevered climate there are always some low-lifes ready to take the law into their own hands and boast about it to their friends. Those who presided over the regulation of a banking system that went out of control, after all, should bear the blame along with the bankers.
My own feeling is that Goodwin would be wise to skedaddle to safer climes for the foreseeable future. His children have been bullied at school (there are reports that he has had to withdraw them) and now his home has been attacked. I doubt it would be safe for him to walk down even the safest street in the poshest part of Edinburgh; a stroll down Princess Street would risk a riot!
Monaco might be a more benign bolthole, at least until public anger is assuaged (which won't be for sometime). It doesn't mean the authorities can't continue to pursue his pension or hold him accountable for his running the bank into the ground.
Perhaps we should be surprised that more bankers' windows have not been smashed, given that most of those culpable for the financial meltdown are still living high on the hog while innocents are losing their jobs and incomes and houses. It will be a long time before banking is once again regarded as a respectable profession: at the moment it is below even journalism and estate agents in public esteem!
And maybe no bankers' windows are safe -- not even those of the Governor of the Bank of England. Now that he over the prospect of a further fiscal stimulus I'm pretty sure Mr Brown would like to smash windows too -- metaphorically speaking, of course.
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