Diamond Jumps Before Being Pushed.

Bob Diamond has at last seen that his position as CEO of Barclay's Bank is no longer tenable. He is now contemplating his next big challenge - how much of a golden handshake can he glum out of the petty cash? No doubt the sum involved will be what the rest of us would regard as a lottery win. Meanwhile George Osborne has asked Labour to "see sense" and stop demanding a full judicial review of the banking industry. "What we need now are some rushed and ill-considered reforms that will achieve nothing and allow banks to continue their criminal activities behind a convenient fig leaf. Wealthy people like me still need the banks to be closed to close scrutiny so we can dodge the taxes that Finance Ministers like me make other people pay. There is no alternative....We're all in this together....Big Society, etc, etc. You get the picture." Of course a full judicial review might also uncover some other "unfortunate" truths, such as the billions of pounds that British banks have happily laundered for various criminal regimes across the world. We might, for instance, learn how one of Colonel Gadaffi's sons was able to buy a £10 million mansion in London (complete with home cinema and private nightclub) on a declared income of less than £30,000 a year or how the £3 billion stolen from Libya as Tripoli fell ended up in the British Virgin Isles.