Bashing the Bankers

How come everyon wants to 'bash up the bankers' these days (which I've no problem with by the way) - yet no one seems quite so keen to hold anyone responsible for the deaths of up to 1,200 patients at Mid-Staffordshire Hospital?

Curious, don't you think.   

A mighty parliamentary commission, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) was set up by the Chancellor - George Osborne - last year and charged with reviewing a number of recent scandals in the industry.

One of the PCBS recommenations is that senior bankers who are found guilty of reckless misconduct should be sent to jail - and that some of their big, contractual bonus payments should be withheld for up to 10 years, presumably on the back of some wrongdoing.

So far, so good - I would say.

But if the bankers are to be dealt with so severely - in a way which reflects the seriousness of their misdeeds - then what does that say about other areas of public life such as the scandal at Mid-Staffs where terrible patient neglect was identified in the Francis report - and on an industrial scale no less.

Yet no one has been prosecuted in the courts - and almost all of the senior managers involved have taken up other very well paid jobs in the public sector including - unbelievably - other very well paid jobs in the NHS.

So you could be forgiven for taking the view that accountability in the public sector operates to a different standard than elsewhere - which doesn't strike me as terribly fair or as an effective way to raise standards of behaviour. 

The PCBS report was met with all-party support in the House of Commons the other day - but this is hardly surprising because politicians can spot an easy 'gig' when they see one - and beating up on the bankers is the political equivalent these days of shooting fish in a barrel.

Much more difficult is the task of ensuring that other arereas of public life are properly and effectively regulated - the House of Commons, for example, or the House of Lords - where 'honourable' members and 'noble' peers have been exposed over various lobbying scandals in recent days.

Yet, so far at least, the Westminster Parliament has shown itself to be incapable of effective regulation from within - since the politicians largely draw up the rules to suit themselves - about 'moonlighting' and holding multiple paid jobs at the same time. 

I will be interested to see what comes out of the PCBS, but to my mind it's not just the banking industry or UK press that needs better regulation - so do the politicians, so does the NHS and  so do the trade unions who are keen that everybody else should be subject to external review and scrutiny - except themselves, of course,