@ Youngmaf - what a load of tripe.
Its good news that Bob Diamond has finally gone- it was he where the buck stopped when it came to Barclays, and it was he who presided over a culture of arrogance and excessive greed.
1. After the succession of calamaties that the banks have been instrumental in, through unfettered greed, a bit of banker bashing is the very least they should expect.Have you forgotten the global financial meltdown, the taxpayer funded bailouts of institutions that were "too big to fail", the refusal to accept their part in the problem and insistence on ridiculously large bonuses, just for doing their job - and for many, a pisspoor performance too!
2.They didnt just "attempt" to manipulate LIBOR - they did. A system that underpins trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions, it is difficult to imagine anyone who hasnt been affected.
3. I do not care whose political watch it happened on, but as a point of interest - it was Thatchers tory government that first unfettered the financial institutions, remember? To try and claim that the tories disagreed with New Labours "light touch" regulation, or would have been any stricter with state regulation is both ludicrous and facile.
4.The banks and some of the larger multinationals are playing taxpayers of all nationalities for fools, talking about relocating and the implied threat of loss of revenue- let em! Its an empty threat and a bluff, and they well know it. Look at the ways in which the companies avoid tax - corporation tax is nominally at around 27-30% in the UK - Companies like Vodaphone and Barclays pay a fraction of that - and you claim that we should feel grateful to the banks, or to excuse them their naked greed and hypocrisy when the crap hits the fan? More nonsense...
Bash em more - impose stinging financial penalties for institutions when they are found to be in breach of regulations, impose a tobin tax on financial transactions andfine both banks and individual traders for breaking the law, or lies and malpractice, gross incompetence or overweaning arrogance and greed - then we might end up with a financial system that is worthy of having...
A public enquiry into the laxity of the financial system would be an excellent way of shining a spotlight on the practices that lead to the financial systems meltdown in 2008-2009, the culture of big bonuses, and let us all know what has been happening. It would be an excellent idea.