(Sir) Fred the Scapegoat

As I've observed before, we seem to have developed a predilection for scapegoats in our public discourse. Rather than discussing and dealing with the complex causes of problems, we seek out an individual, or some individuals, to hang blame on. Usually, of course, in matters of politics, ethics and even as far as sport, it's never the fault of one individual. The failure of the England rugby team in New Zealand wasn't just Martin Johnson's fault, and yet the press were quick to bay for his scalp. The collapse of our cricketers against Pakistan wasn't one man's fault. The corruption of the press wasn't the work of one woman. It was a culture created over the years by public appetite and corporate greed. Corruption in the Met and financial laxity among parliamentarians was a result of rising amorality in public life in general.

This is the rather powerful painting by the pre-Raphaelite artist, Holman Hunt, of The Scapegoat as described in the Pentateuch. Every year on the Day of Atonement the goat is chosen by lot out of two, and is driven out into the desert symbolically carrying the sins of the people from the previous year. Hunt captures not only the physical isolation but also the mental desolation of the scapegoat. However the point in this case is that the victim is not a person but an animal. No doubt there's a surge of sympathy from animal-loving readers, and yet the point is that this is precisely what we try to do to human scapegoats. At least we get them out of sight and hopefully out of mind.

The latest hate-figure to be driven into the wilderness is, of course, the former boss of RBS, Mr Fred Goodwin. As many others have pointed out, he isn't a bad man and he wasn't a bad banker; but he was chief executive when the bank made one disastrous acquisition. Let's be clear: it was a decision approved by the shareholders and the board, recommended by merchant bankers, passed by the FSA and presumably by the Treasury. Fred Goodwin didn't bring down either the bank or the economy single-handed. And yet the politicians bayed for his public humiliation and, sadly, the Queen constitutionally obliged and stripped him of his knighthood.

Andrew Strauss, England's able and successful cricket captain, was honoured with an OBE in 2011. Should he have it removed after the debacle of the crushing defeats in Dubai? The idea is absurd, and yet the principle is the same.

It seems to me too easy a debating-tool to single out an individual as the encapsulation of an issue. It's too easy to identify him or her as the problem itself, and therefore to claim that you've solved it with their removal. There's a sense of satisfied blood-lust which has a very uncivilised smell about it. And I'm sad to say that that our politicians and our journalists indulge in it with increasing frequency and ferocity.

I was watching the first programme, Protecting our Children, last night and I have to say that my heart ached for all involved, especially the family, whose parents clearly had inadequate role models for parenting and seemed to have no wider family to support them. The father in particular was completely out of his depth both in fathering and in dealing with kindly but highly articulate social workers. It was a painfully sad story. One thing that struck me was that dad's only recourse was to blame their young social worker, who "has always had it in for us". It was, it seemed to me, that primitive reaction to a mess to pin the blame on someone else, i.e. to find a scapegoat. In his case it was excusable, because he had such limited personal resources. However from first-class Oxford graduates, on whatever side of the political spectrum, who are trained to think and to argue issues through in the premier debating chamber of the country it is inexcusable. It is simply a lazy and low form of populism. 

It also avoids addressing the real underlying issues, and in that respect is simply laying up trouble for the future. The action preceding the animal scapegoat was for the people to examine and admit where they'd gone wrong. Without that we may feel better, but we get no better. As the Wikipedia article puts it:

"Since this goat is sent away to perish, the word 'scapegoat' has come to mean a person who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes."

Saving the Hester affair

Well, Mr Hester, you clearly didn't read my post before announcing you had decided not to accept your bonus after all. I'm sure Mr Cameron has phoned you to say thank you. Of course, it hasn't got the hacks off your back - who conveniently forget that you've turned an annual £24.1 billion loss round in four years so that the bank is now making a profit. I don't reckon it's your fault that the world economy has continued to slide into recession - which, I assume, is why the markets remain a tad depressed. Things like the euro crisis and recession in the States can't be laid entirely at your door.

So I wouldn't blame you, if you picked up your substantial bonus from last year (more than four times this one!) and offered your considerable financial talents elsewhere. I'm sure there are some banks out there who'd love to use you. I get the feeling that you're not quite ready to enjoy your arboretum and twiddle your thumbs. It would be a shame if you did either.

Or here's another suggestion. How about taking an unpaid sabbatical and producing a rationale for incentives that even the grubby Quintus Slides of this world could understand? They, after all, are the public's source of wisdom on such matters. I think you could afford it. Should RBS look like going pear-shaped while you were working on it, you could always step back in and steady the ship. Hopefully the team is good enough to carry on with the progress you've made so far. While you were about it, how about George Osborne, or even David himself, commissioning you to devise a bonus-scheme for the city big bosses which is transparent and fair? I reckon, coming from you, they might listen, and something good come from this tangled mess of envy and inequality.

With best wishes.

Tankers and bankers

Give the - I was going to say, the poor man, but that wouldn't exactly be accurate - the rich man a break. A few years ago, my late aunt bequeathed to me some Royal Bank of Scotland shares, which was very kind, not least because they were worth quite a bit. Sadly, I didn't cash them in, and now, as everyone knows, they're practically worthless, thanks to the good offices of the benighted and knighted Fred Goodwin. They're worth about a twentieth of what they used to be, which is a massive fall by any count. Now I'm not too fussed about my personal wealth, to be honest. We have enough to get by and to enjoy life. For example, we've have just booked to see Dreamboats and Petticoats when it comes to Oxford in the summer, including the wise-in-hindsight line: 'It's no good living beyond your means. If everyone did that, the whole country would go bankrupt.'

Dreamboats and Petticoats © The Guardian 

Of course, that's what Northern Rock and RBS did massively, and at the time it seemed impossible not to bail them out - hence the government owning a whopping 84% majority shareholding of newly created RBS shares. I'm not complaining, as my shares were a gift in the first place, but I have been interested in their fate ever since. RBS was clearly built on foundations of endebted sand (like of course many Western economies, including our own). Sir Fred Goodwin was hoofed out and in 2008 Stephen Hester was shoe-horned in to rescue the company.

I am not happy with the huge disparity of wealth existing in our country in a time of economic austerity. I don't like the £millions salaries and bonuses that executives award to themselves and each other. In my view there is no justification for them. No one needs such vast sums year after year, and frankly I don't buy the talent-drain argument. But I actually can see some logic in offering Mr Hester a £2000 cash plus almost a million in shares package, if, as he seems to be doing, he steers the loss-making RBS tanker off the rocks and turns it around. What more effective incentive could there be for a banker than to see the value of his shares rise as the company enters profitability? In the meantime, we, the taxpayers, would have the prospect of eventually recovering the £85 billion we sank into the out-of-control vessel four years ago - or even making a profit.... That could, given the political will, be useful in reviving the economy and creating jobs for our young people.

Of course, £85,000,000,000 is not a bottomless pot in national terms, but it's not peanuts. Unless Mr Hester and co succeed in turning round the company, it'll be more like a bottomless pit. I sometimes wish populist politicians, like Mr Miliband, would ignore the tabloid pack and pause to think what the cost of failure at RBS before taking pot-shots at the messenger his government appointed.

Meanwhile, in order to be even-handed, I scarcely believed when Jane told me that the cost of the opening and closing parties of the Olympics and Paralympics had jumped from £40 million to £80 million, and the budget for security had also doubled to £553 million. Maybe the security is necessary. Maybe we have intelligence of a major Al-Quaida threat. The minister, Hugh Robertson, blamed the Arab Spring, which his leader supported to the tune of £950 million in Libya. It seems to have increased insecurity here.

But the opening? Apparently we're going to have the biggest bell in Europe cast - er? Why? "Ask not for whom the bell tolls," perhaps. So we can ring the death  knell for the British economy? We're going to call the ceremony, 'The Isles of Wonders', to celebrate both Shakespeare (The bell is to be inscribed with Caliban's description of the island in The Tempest, "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises".) and the National Health Service... The Tempest's island is of course not part of Great Britain. I was mildly amused to see an academic article beginning, "The evidence is overwhelming that Shakespeare not only set The Tempest on a Caribbean island,..." - Jamaica, possibly, home of Usain Bolt and tipped by Asafa Powell to make a clean sweep of the men's 100 metres? Even were the bard thinking of England, the end of the play is not exactly encouraging, as it leaves Caliban and his two drunken companions in charge of the island, and we're left to speculate what sort of government they'll end up being - while the rest return to the civilization of Italy!

In the "Austerity Olympics" of 1948, Janie Hampton, Olympic historian, told the Today Programme that "no money was spent at all". There were young people, choirs, orchestra and military band. And it was a jolly good show. The Edinburgh Tattoo is pretty impressive too. I'm not sure why we need to have all the latest gizmos, light shows, professionals and excessive fireworks - and try to outdo other openings. The Government constantly tells us we have to economise and that we're in a time of austerity. Too right! And yet all of a sudden, there go our taxes (or our national overdraft) on what are only games. A better way to celebrate the NHS would be to divert £40 million in its direction, rather than use the money as a prodigal means of telling the country how much the coalition loves the health service despite the cuts it's making.