His resignation comes
as a result of Barclays being fined £290 Million last week for manipulating
Libor rates. (the rate at which banks lend to each other)
Since the story broke politicians
have been falling over each other to stick the knife in, with the PM,
Chancellor and Opposition Leader all endorsing Mr Diamonds decision.
Diamond has said he
felt he was hounded out, but judging by what has been reported since last week,
I can’t see what he has to complain about.
He was head of Barclays
investment division when his staff tried to tamper with the inter-bank rates, but
has said he said didn’t know what was going on.
This can be taken one
of two ways, either he genuinely had no idea what his staff were doing which
when you’re being paid millions a year to run a bank is a tame excuse, or he
did know what was going on and decided not to intervene.
Whichever it is he doesn’t
come out of it in a very good light, and now the government have set-up an
inquiry into the Libor affair, his reputation may a take a further trip south.
Whatever happens at the
inquiry into banking, I’m pretty confident in predicting that we will see a few
more high-profile resignations in the weeks to come.
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