Individual responsibility or collective fault? Who to point the finger at in the LIBOR scandal
by Sam Bright
Whodunnit?
Barclays Bank has been fairly comprehensively trashed in the past couple of weeks. It’s chairman, Marcus Agius, resigned to protect the chief executive, Bob Diamond; and then temporarily un-resigned when Sir Mervyn King made clear that Mr Diamond had to go. Other executives too have taken the plunge: notably, Jerry Del Messier, the (now ex-) Chief Operating Officer.
There are, as I see it, two main difficulties involved with blaming a few senior officials at Barclays.
Strip clubs are not, in general, a particularly divisive subject. I’d bet a fair sum that if you asked the person next to you whether they were ‘in favour’ of such establishments, they would snort in derision and question your sanity. Communities are often outraged when a seedy-looking bar full of scantily clad women and attracting an overweight, greasy, male clientele opens in their midst. Raise the issue near an outspoken feminist, and you’ll be lucky to escape with nothing more than an earful.
An old woman lives in a cave to escape the Antonovs that regularly drop their deadly payload over her village. She knows that she shares the cave with any number of lethally poisonous snakes. Between a bomb and a serpent: she’s made her choice. Perhaps to escape the fate of one of her neighbours, an 11 year old boy who took shelter behind a tree when he heard the approaching drone of the aircraft. He lost both arms.
