It was phone book down the back of the trousers time!

January 31st, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Quentin Letts

Last updated at 9:54 PM on 30th January 2012

Another day, another two outsiders’ reputations fed through the shredder. Gosh, it’s gory here at the carnivore Commons.

The first of yesterday’s victims – sorry, witnesses – was Hector Sants, a banker who since the middle of 2007 has been chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, which is meant to supervise the City. He did work there before in a senior capacity but only took over as boss a few months before the Royal Bank of Scotland did a passable imitation of a dying bagpipe.

MPs on the Treasury Select Committee had Mr Sants into their study yesterday. Phone book down the back of the trousers time.

Witnesses: Financial Services Authority Chief Executive, Hector Sants (left) and Chairman Lord Turner (right)

He appeared alongside his chairman, Lord (Adair) Turner, one of life’s talcum powder salesmen. Great clouds of faintly aromatic dust dance in his orbit. Lord Turner is one of those boomy-voiced yarners who, while talking, seems to be moulding an invisible orb of clay in front of his chest, such are his hand movements. It is said in some quarters that he may fancy his chances of becoming Governor of the Bank of England. Not after yesterday, he shouldn’t.

The meeting was about the FSA’s report on ‘The Failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland’. Initially, this consisted of one sheet of A4 paper, neatly typed. That, as you can imagine, was considered less than equal to the task. The report facing the committee yesterday was a 500-page doorstop. That’s more like it!

Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie (Con, Chichester) asked in his desiccated manner why the FSA’s report had originally been just the one page. ‘Our normal procedure was not to put out anything,’ replied Lord Turner.

‘You can scarcely have thought one page was much of an improvement,’ said Mr Tyrie, dry as Noilly Prat. Lord Turner, starting to rotate those hands: ‘We were not being imaginative enough.’ David Ruffley (Con, Bury St Edmunds) addressed his remarks to ‘Mr Sants’, spitting out the name as though it were that of some criminal mastermind. Poor Sants turned the colour of terracotta.

Mr Ruffley suggested that there had been ‘a grotesquely inadequate system of regulation that a man like Fred Goodwin can pretty much walk away from this mess scot free’. He stared at Mr Sants like an angry bullock.

Mr Sants, swallowing, argued that the FSA’s powers had been unwisely limited. He may have had a point here but he proceeded so heavily to blame other people that the MPs felt he was trying dodging culpability.

First he blamed the rules. Then he said: ‘The general approach to supervision before the summer of 2007 was inadequate.’ Jesse Norman (Con, Hereford): ‘Would it not be truer to say “grossly inadequate”?’ Mr Sants, desperate to agree: ‘Grossly inadequate!’

Mr Sants: ‘I had no part in any way in the supervision of RBS.’ Mr Norman concluded it must have been ‘a wildly dysfunctional organisation’. Mr Sants blamed his predecessor. He blamed the past chairman. He blamed the board of RBS (again, a fair point, surely). ‘It does sound as if you are dumping on your predecessor,’ said Mr Tyrie.

Mr Sants repeatedly tried to bring in another FSA bod, Margaret Cole. Mr Ruffley refused to let Mr Sants pass the buck to her. ‘I want to hear YOUR views,’ he told an increasingly sweaty Mr Sants. Mr Tyrie said he did not think there was ‘any need’ for Ma Cole to speak at one point. It was Mr Sants they were after hearing.

Andrea Leadsom (Con, S Northants) commented caustically on Mr Sants’s stonking salary. Mr Sants wheedled that he received no final-salary pension.

Michael Fallon (Con, Sevenoaks) calmly told the by now desperate Sants: ‘You keep trying to offload the blame.’ He asked why Mr Sants, as chief executive, had taken months before meeting the chairman of the troubled RBS. ‘There was a tradition that the chairman of the FSA engaged with chairman of benks,’ jibbered Mr Sants.

Oh dear. Not a happy afternoon’s evidence. Next!

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The FSA totally failed to do what it was supposed to do which was to regulate the Financial Sector to prevent the very thing which ended up happening. The reason behind that is either it did not use the powers it had or was not given the powers it needed by the politicians who created the Quango.
The financial system operated for longer than most people can remember with only the odd failure which was then contained. The fact that several major banks all failed by doing the same thing says that the regulators were either unwilling or unable to stop it, and that means either the regulators themselves or the people who removed a sound regulatory system and replaced it with a totally inadequate one which totally failed us all should be called to account and forced to take responsibility for their incompetence.

– Jimmy R, Highlands of Scotland, 31/1/2012 21:19

Well it’s about time somebody asked some questions to the FSA. For years it has sat back and let ‘The City’ regulate itself and we all know how that’s turned out! How many ordinary people have suffered due to the completely inadequate service provided by the FSA?
Perhaps Lord Turner might be next to have some of his honours removed? As for him aspiring to become the next Governor of the Bank of England, such conceit and undeserved self value definitely needs to be squashed and Heston and the rest of his ‘boys’ got rid of quickly.

– John stillatwork-just, England, 31/1/2012 20:54

The FSA is a total farce. Just jobs for the boys. As usual. Unregulated and unaccountable. Nothing new there then, and never will be.

– maladjusted, france, 31/1/2012 19:59

What a glaring contrast with the, “all lads together approach” here in the UK
when dealing with these hopeless, so-called financial experts! A couple of
hours sparring with some MP wannabe celebs, a gentle dressing down, and
that’s it – back to the trough for another go! In the ‘States, these characters
would more likely to be ‘cuffed, stuck into the back of a patrol car and rushed
around to a “proper” law order judge, who may very well have them sized-up
for a chain-gang – a la Madoff or Stanford, with non of the Ernest Saunders
ga-ga nonsense as a get-out! All this financial catastrophe in the UK, with
highly paid regulators and all the trimmings – and they just stand by and let
the place collapse – then walk away, with the only “punishment” a good talking-to by Tyrie and his mates! That’ll show ’em! And they even try to wriggle out of
that slap-on-the-wrist too, by trying to blame all their miserable underlings for not “warning them”!

– John Smith, Birmingham, England, 31/1/2012 07:45

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