All I want for Christmas is bankers in prison Brian Reade only wants one gift under the tree - high-profile dawn raids by the Serious Fraud Squad on the homes of senior bankers One sight has warmed the cockles of this nation’s heart in recent times.
Wincing Suits on hefty salaries and borrowed time, dragged before MPs to be grilled on why they think they have a divine right to shaft us, left grovelling on all fours as they get their backsides spanked (well, when Margaret Hodge is there anyway).
Yet, after the feel-good kickings, we’ve been left with the impression that they’ve simply waltzed off laughing at us, the Little People, who can’t do anything about their amoral activities.
Well, not everyone has got away with it. My profession has felt the full force of the law, with dozens of journalists arrested, 27 charged with serious malpractice offences, one newspaper closed and a judge-led inquiry leading to a Royal Charter that calls for state censorship of the press for the first time in 300 years.
We’ve also seen a policeman face criminal charges over Plebgate and four others face gross misconduct hearings.
Yet, five years after the banking industry brought the country to its knees, not one senior banker has been interviewed by police. And no judge has been asked to lead an inquiry into the countless proven acts of criminality that wreaked havoc on ordinary lives.
We’ve known since 2008 that their illegal acts of greed led directly to a crippling recession that landed us with horrendous debt, cost millions of jobs and heralded the welfare cuts that are devastating the lives of the poorest. And the charge sheet keeps growing.
Last week, looking at Reverend Flowers, we weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry that such a flawed clown had been allowed to run a major bank. This week, a Government report accused RBS of forcing the small businesses that sought its help into bankruptcy, so it could seize their assets on the cheap.
It also accused the bank, which is 83% owned by taxpayers, of instructing firms to which it was lending to withhold tax from the HMRC.
The author, finance expert Lawrence Tomlinson, called the actions by RBS “disturbing” and said the investigation left him feeling “really sick”.
Welcome to the club. We’re all vomited-out, to be honest.
This is simply more damning evidence that shows the disgraced bankers who were saved from extinction by taxpayers have not learnt a lesson. Indeed, they are as shameless now as they were before the crash.
We gave them billions to get the economy going but, like Third World dictators siphoning foreign aid into their own pockets, they simply pushed desperate people who needed their help into the abyss.
Yet it’s those people they have thrown on to welfare who are demonised as the “something for nothing brigade”, while they carry on screwing the people who got them out of jail.
And because of their chums in high places – the politicians, judges and senior police figures to who they give donations and seats on boards – nothing has happened to them apart from the odd knighthood being stripped.
They’ve even got their multi-million-pound bonuses back.
Which is why all I want for Christmas is the Serious Fraud Squad to launch a series of high-profile dawn raids on the homes of senior bankers.
Leaving the many other guilty ones shivering with fear during their festive skiing break that next year they could be spending it in a prison cell
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