There
can be few people in Gibraltar who are not aware of the latest banking scandals
to strike in the UK. First 17 million RBS – Nat West customers found they
couldn’t access their accounts or make transfers because the bank’s computer
system collapsed. Then we have the Libor fixing debacle at Barclays which could
yet spread to RBS again, HSBC, Citibank, UBS amongst others. Then just when you
thought matters couldn’t get worse along comes the mis-selling of interest rate
products in which 28,000 small UK businesses were sold these products by
Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Lloyds. These banks now have to pay out massive
compensation.
Of
course many of these banking names are well known to Gibraltarians because they
dominate our retail banking sector too just as they do in the UK. It doesn’t
need me to talk of the moral collapse within the international banking system
it is there for all to see.
On
Saturday I attend the Fabian Society Summer Conference in London. The theme was
Labour’s Next Majority and the highlight was to have been a Q and A session
with Opposition leader Ed Miliband. Due to the banking crisis Miliband
shortened his Q and As and instead made a keynote speech on banking in general
and Barclays in particular.
An interesting
point the Labour leader made was that if a person goes in to a supermarket,
shoplifts some products worth a few pounds and is caught he or she will
certainly be prosecuted with a real possibility they will be jailed. If a rogue
banker cheats people by rigging the Libor rate or mis-selling businesses
products which could have driven them to the wall they walk away Scott free
with their bonuses all too often intact. Where is the morality in that?
By
chance this week the BBC is running a series of programmes on getting old.
Broadcaster Gloria Honeyford, who is no spring chicken herself, moved in for a
few days with a retired woman living on her own. When all her expenses were
paid she was left with just three pounds a day on which to eat and buy household
products.
Gloria
went to the supermarket with her with the intention of buy some meat,
vegetables and pasta to make a Bolognese dish to last a few days. She was
horrified to find the three pound would not cover the price of the ingredients:
it would take two days budget if she bought nothing else.
Now
in an email between the Barclays Libor traders one asked another to fix the
rate to get him out of a spot and the reward would be a bottle of Bolly. Well I
doubt if at the troughs bankers drink at a bottle of Bollinger gives any change
from 100 pound and of course the rarer vintages can run in to hundreds or
thousands. Even at 100 quid it was more than the lady in Gloria’s documentary
had for food in a month. Ill gotten gains indeed.
However
this is not just a story of London or New York or the other financial capitals
of the world. There are too many families or elderly people in Gibraltar who
are struggling to make ends meet: who everyday have to struggle to put food on
the table and on some days don’t. These have nots are closely watched every day
they go in to Morrisons or the local shop to make sure they don’t lift an apple
or make off with a packet of pasta.
Yet
we all know there are those in our midst who have benefited in recent years
from lucrative contracts and sweetener deals to line their pockets. The
government is investigating many of these and in due course these misdeeds will
be laid bare with some people, possibly even former government ministers,
standing in the dock. In the arrogance of their years in power the cry was in
Gibraltar as in London’s financial districts – let them drink Bolly!
The
jury is still out on Barclays' chief executive – in all likelihood Bob will be
found not to have been a Diamond geezer after all. The same fate awaits those
who abused the people of Gibraltar: their corks have popped and its time for
justice.
