Boris Johnson’s wrong-headed parable of the innocent banker
Boris Johnson writes in the Telegraph today, he seems to be seeking to excuse the behaviour of dodgy bankers. No not the Tories’ fund raisers but actual bankers. He seeks to use a parable (he’s related to God) to compare being bitten by a random dog with the alleged dishonest conduct of many banks. In other words it’s all just a rather nasty accident that’s no one’s fault, a bit like a rapist thinking no means yes I guess. Check out the story here.
I think it means we need less wrong-headed politicians and a few with brains. The reason for banks closing is greed on the part of politicians just as much as bankers.
The parable is daft, there is nothing accidental in banks colluding with valuers and brokers to push up values and make borrowing easier; it was done to generate commissions and charges. The writing was on the wall fo them when folk took the law into their own hands and started issuing proceedings to recover dishonestly high bank charges. Again the politicians collude in defence of this by kicking the cases into the long grass for years.
Coincidence and accidents? Not likely fella.
Boris Johnson strikes me as Caliban to Gordon Brown’s Prospero, not sure who David Cameron would be.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am
That is your interpretation rather than any reality. I would suspect that there is no more of a “parable” in this that if he wrote about porridge. The truth, as ever in life is rather more mundane one suspects:
Boris has a full time job as Mayor of London, he is attending the Conservative Party Conference and has a regular Tuesday slot to fill for the Daily Telegraph. As most experienced journalists, he will always have a “filler” story to hand for when circumstances and time presses.
Finally, unlike the “Ruth Kelly to Resign” story, Boris is unlikely to want to field a ‘distracting story’ during conference. Please do check under your bed. Oh you do, jolly good.