Sack them! Hang them! MPs deliver their collective verdict on bankers

By Quentin Letts

And they’re off! Again. Here at that modern Tyburn, the scalp-hungry House of Commons, the politicians sensed a chance to beat up another estate of the realm.

A rival group of so-called leaders of society had been doing what they ought not to have done. MPs piled in with zeal.

Politicians had failed to pass laws which  might have prevented that misbehaviour. Politicians had sucked up to the malefactors, courting them over prawn cocktail for donations and approval. But the times are changing. Parliament is rediscovering its clout. Now the politicians competed with one another to ululate their disdain.

Gusto: George Osborne was looking forward to some juicy headlines

Bankers? Sack them, prosecute them, hang them! (And, er, let’s quickly find someone else to sponsor our next party conference.)

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, hastened to the House with gusto. The latest economic figures were on the ropey side but this row would bag all the headlines and was, for Mr Osborne, much more juicy.

He made an unscheduled statement about Barclays/Libor (pronounced Lie-bour). What a humdinger. It even has a brooding baddie called Diamond and his sidekick Rich. We haven’t had names like that since The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Standing in: Labour's Rachel Reeves

Even sweeter for the Chancellor, his Labour opponent, Ed Balls, was absent from the premises. Poor Balls. Ghastly luck. He was making a speech to some conference in Birmingham (why?). His place was taken by Rachel Reeves, Labour’s  No 2 on money matters. With that voice and those feet is she Bernard Bresslaw’s long-lost brother? Or is it Harry H Corbett’s younger Steptoe?

Mr Osborne said that the banks had ‘elevated greed above all other concerns’. The Blair and Brown Governments had been ‘utterly clueless’ about taming the City beasts. As Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) admitted: ‘We were in thrall to them.’ Mr Bryant, a former curate, wanted Mr Diamond to give evidence on oath when he is placed before the Treasury Select Committee.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems’ Viscount Thurso spoke of ‘a sewer of systemically amoral dishonesty’ in the City. Sir Tony Baldry, second churches commissioner and Tory MP for Banbury, said the City must regain its ‘integrity’.

Our next hymn is….

‘Daily daylight robbery,’ said the SDLP’s Mark Durkan, who also wanted some knighthood-stripping of bankers. ‘Corrupt banksters,’ said Mike Gapes (Lab, Ilford S). ‘Bring the full force of the law against them,’ said Matt Hancock (Con, W Suffolk).

Jonathan Edwards (Pl Cymru, Carmarthen E) said that in Iceland they put bankers and even a former Prime Minister on trial. ‘Don’t tempt me!’ laughed Mr Osborne. Of Gordon Brown (Lab, Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath) there was nae sign.

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Things started to spiral into madness when Andy Love (Lab, Edmonton) said he wanted the Financial Services Authority to send bankers emails headed ‘you’re nicked, big boy’. Has anyone ever called Mr Love ‘big boy’? Andrew Tyrie (Con, Chichester) said bluntly that Barclays had been ‘lying’.

Clive Efford (Lab, Eltham) said, with mounting fever, that ‘these people are thieves and criminals and have made beggars of our constituents’. Mr Osborne noted that the Labour government, which Mr Efford supported, had failed to do much to stop them.

 

   

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Mr Efford flew off his trolley and had to be brought to order –  quickly and diplomatically – by  the excellent Deputy Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.

Well, I think you get the drift. MPs were vexed. There was a certain amount of blaming of one another – Dennis Skinner (Lab, Bolsover) naturally thought it was all Margaret Thatcher’s fault – but the stronger impression was one of a Commons much less timid than in past Parliaments. Good.

For all the ripeness of some of the things said yesterday, for all the swiftness of heel shown by frontbenchers, a legislature which is more jealous of its powers is surely a better thing than past arrangements when the politicians lived in dread of upsetting a vested interest.

When Mr Diamond comes to Mr Tyrie’s Treasury Select Committee to ‘give us his answers’ (as Mr Osborne put it yesterday), Tyburn will be en fete.

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