Barclay's Bob Diamond Bags Bonus from Croesus!

Bob Diamond sees no recession. Barclay's Bank sees no recession. Gordon Brown does vaguely and all the while the national deficit gets whoppingly bigger. Bob Diamond is the American in charge of running Barclay's Bank and he carries on as if the Yellow Brick Road was real. In fact, Barclay's is no longer a bank, it has become a finance product retail shop. So much so that those with decent deposits get to be phoned up by British call centre workers trying to flog the latest "financial product" and the less financially secure get to speak to an Indian call centre with the delightful tones of 1940's English with a hint those teach yourself English CD courses. "Hello, Mr.Jones, I notice you only have two pee in your account - why is this?" "Rupee?" "No, not rupee, TOOOO PEEEE!" and the satellite phone system goes into it's own orbit.

Bob won't being getting any phone calls from Bombay. No, he's got some other place for the £63 million bonus bag. And I hardly think it's in a Barclays deposit account. "Hello, Bob, this is Brenda from Billericay, how are you doing today. Great. I thought I'd give you a call to let you know about the latest financial product we have on offer. It's got great returns!" A fantasy of course.

I find it hard to fathom where Bob Diamond and Barclays found this £63 million going spare. They aren't lending much, they aren't giving out mortgages as they used to, business is grumbling, so where did Bob make it all? Has he been to the funny money casino? It seems that this new thing called "investment banking" is just some kind of fancy money laundering, all done in the cleanest possible way, no doubt. I don't get to hear that banks have cleaned up their act. They've just re-invented the vehicle they last used. After all, if an impecunious hobo can be sold a house with a loan that, when it defaults, is wrapped up with similar loans and passed off as today's best investment deal, what chance have any of us to get a sense of the real value of money?

Who is fooling who? It seems two and two don't necessarily make four in the modern banking world. Five is just as good a number, or six or seven. Gordon Brown's arithmetic is at sixes and sevens. How do we know such an affliction isn't elsewhere?