Enough To Make You Choke

About the only thing more disgusting than Fred Goodwin being able to draw a £650,000 per annum pension for life from the age of 50 is the knowledge that it could have been prevented.

Alistair Darling has admitted that once again the Government did not do anything to prevent it although they could have. Now they have the embarrassing job of once again trying to lock the gate after the horse has bolted by trying, via legal means, to prevent Goodwin having it.

The Deal

Goodwin lied to the Treasury Committee when he said he had the same pension as all other employs of RBS, a Defined Benefits Scheme. If you want to be pedantic, he got defined benefits alright but only those allowed by topping his pension pot up to the tune of £8m when he was sacked. No wonder he waived any rights to a pay off - he was laughing for life. If such a scheme were granted to all employees of RBS then the business would no longer be viable.

Gross Negligence

Under the RBS scheme, and by virtue of him being sacked, RBS and the Government had every right to prevent him drawing this absurd pension and particularly when he was only 50.

It once again beggars belief that we allow this Government time and again to get away with such negligence and incompetence under the guise of bank bail outs and rescue plans.

It all comes back to the advice they are getting. The Directors of RBS weren't going to stop Goodwin getting his money - after all he had given them their nice, well apportioned positions and they enjoyed the ride. It was as much as they could do to make sure that taxpayer money looks after their favoured son in his 'retirement'.

The real culprits here are Ministers who are constantly advised by the very people who condoned what Goodwin did - Investment Bankers. At every move, the Government is found to be lacking in thinking through the plans, properly accounting for money and blindly guessing their way forward hoping it vaguely takes them nearer some sort of economic salvation.

It's a strange day when George Osbourne gets one over on you but Darling's excuse on lack of due diligence and the Government's obsession with getting through the bail out and ousting Goodwin in a simultaneous blow was indicative of the whole credit crunch fiasco - no one cared to study the detail. Lord Myners certainly did not - he was one of the boys from the City.

It's time they paid attention to how they spend that money because I think it is high time we start, as taxpayers, withholding it until we are convinced that it will be spent on the right things, for the right reasons.

Enough, surely, is enough.