Nice work if you can retire from it

Now, the thing I like about this continuing kerfuffle about useless ex-RBS head Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension scheme, and I say ‘like’ in the sense that I ‘like’ being blinded with unbridled fury, is that it combines so many of my favourite things, and I say ‘favourite’ in the sense of ‘most infuriating’. Useless, greedy bankers, useless, hypocritical politicians, and the knee-jerk populism of pandering to tabloid media kangaroo-courtism. I’m so happy I could vomit.

Obvious points first, I suppose. Does Freddy deserve the better part of a seven hundred thousand spondoolicks a year for presiding over a well-publicised catastrophic collapse? Well, no, but it’s similarly difficult to justify your average Premier League footballer’s weekly wage, especially if they hit a run of bad form. Perceived values aside, there’s these things called ‘contracts’ that determine this sort of thing, which has some sort of legal basis behind it, I gather. Y’know, speaking as a layman.

Which makes it rather surprising that the all-round disappointing use of carbon that represents Harriet Harman is spouting such patent drivel as she has over the past few days. Harman, before taking her current post as Gordon Brown’s Official Wingperson was Minister of Justice and claims to be a lawyer. So one would be forgiven for thinking that she may have some interest in the rule of law, and that sort of thing. Y’know, speaking as a layman.

Statements, such as was made to the Beeb such as “The prime minister has said that it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted” and “…it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in” show not only a baffling confusion between the role of Prime Minister and role of Tinpot Dictator, but also demonstrate a clear intent by a government to ignore all established legal frameworks to satiate a baying mob stoked up by tabloid journalism. Given that there is no legal recourse for stripping Fred Fauntleroy, the only possible interpretation of her statements is that they are proposing pushing through a law designed specifically for this one case.

This is lunacy. This is stupidity. If this has, for some reason, become an endemic problem with banking executive’s pensions then why not tackle this through a robust series of financial regulation that, while they’re at it, will ensure that our banks don’t piss all our money up the wall and collapse? Well, a bit late for that, I suppose, but wasn’t it a good, blindingly obvious idea?

I have two real problems with this mess. We already have a number of ways of getting money from people. Income tax, capital gains tax, we have more taxes that we know what to do with. Surely, one would think, if the public are getting this angry over one massive pension payout, they must be equally angry about all of the other massive pension payouts? Could, perhaps, a tax on the ludicrously well-off be the way forward? Our would such an outbreak of social justice perhaps cause New Labour’s financial backers to rethink their positions?

Secondly, there’s the continued insistence that Gordy Brown knew nothing about these pension arrangements, and couldn’t possible be expected to know anything about it, and none of it’s his fault and we should all trust our PM in these trying times. Leaving aside the issue that under his watch as both Chancellor and Prime Minister he sleptwalk into the single greatest financial disaster in recorded history, let’s take a look at who, precisely was so bullish about the gunpoint merger and patented ‘renationalisation without any of the benefits’ scheme? Oh. The Broon.

People, largely politicians, bemoan the public’s continuing disengagement with the political process and the increasing levels of cynicism. Yet at the same time, they make no effort to stop being oafish bunglers who’ll happily swear that black is white safe in the knowledge that laws do not apply to them, as evidenced by Jack ‘The Demon Headmaster’ Straw’s recent veto of the Freedom of Information Act demand for the cabinet minutes relating to the decision to go to war in Iraq. A decision, incidentally, in which that pesky public opinion that is so important now was utterly ignored.

My only consolation in all of this mess is that in five year’s time when we’re all staving each other’s heads in with rocks after humanity’s utter collapse politicians will likely be the first up against the wall.