How much coaching did that take?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 The men who led the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS "to the brink of collapse" appeared before the Treasury Select Committee today. You can read what happened HERE.
Some of it - including their lack of banking qualifications - is pretty astonishing, but I was also interested in the fact that, according to The Times, "All four of the bankers have received extensive coaching from public relations and communications experts before today's meeting".
Actually, this isn't unusual. I know several select committee "witnesses" who have been "coached" prior to the big day. However, for "communications experts" read lawyers. (Go figure, as they say.)
In contrast, when I appeared before the Health Select Committee some years ago, I was thrown to the wolves without a media trainer or lawyer in sight. And it probably showed!
In hindsight I am quite grateful because it allowed me to answer each question in my own way using my own words. (Afterwards someone asked if my strategy was to talk as much as possible in order to delay the next question!)
If I appeared a little, well, unpolished, that wasn't such a bad thing. After all, if Forest really is a stooge of Big Tobacco you would expect me to be a carbon copy of Nick Naylor, that suave, sophisticated spokesman in Thank You For Smoking. Sadly, sob, I'm not.
PS. Now that the bankers have apologised (how much coaxing coaching did that take?), it is too much to ask the government (notably our ex-Chancellor Gordon Brown) to apologise too?
Reader Comments (8)
There's more chance of an Aberdonian opening his wallet than GB apologising!
Oi! Anti-Scot xenophobia! Now gan aff and prepare that cludgie wifie, or youle no be gettin yer poond from the big man. Ee've got a jobbie the size o' a wee dug bustin at me troosers.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the fact that they didn't have banking qualifications being a problem. The BBC excitedly put together a montage of soundbites to prove how shonky they were. That fact immediately makes me feel there was a smear campaign going on.
I know it is anecdotal, but the most astute person I ever met in any office was a guy in the late 80s who was a superb accountant. He had no qualifications whatsoever. When the vogue was to employ only those with profesional qualifications, he was forced out. An accounting 'profesional' came in, bristling with certificates, and the company (12 years old) was sold to a competitor within 6 months.
The simple fact is that they were bad at the job. A qualification wouldn't necessarily have made them any better, they would just have cocked up the business with a qualification in their back pocket. The real baddie is the Government and their over-regulation that led all these dodgy practices being forced underground. Even the bosses (with qualifications) didn't know what was going on.
It was a show trial. Designed to elicit exactly the reaction that will be screeched in the press tomorrow. As such, the Government will get away with it for a few more weeks.
I remember seeing a similar media coup a long time ago, where US tobacco execs were lined up to say they didn't believe tobacco was addictive. Nicely spliced in sequence to make them look mad. It worked a treat.
“It was a show trial. Designed to elicit exactly the reaction that will be screeched in the press tomorrow. As such, the Government will get away with it for a few more weeks.”
Spot on, Dick Puddlecote. However, even given a few more weeks, the government cannot wriggle out of this one. I’ve noticed subtle changes in current affairs programmes recently. Notable yesterday evening was a news item about a publican advertising for customers. The newsreader actually reported that sales had dropped due to the smoking ban as well as the price of beer. Now that’s a first on national TV! Even Nigel Farage was given a fairer hearing on Dimbleby’s Question Time recently.
I note, also, that current affairs programmes are now openly questioning why the general public doesn’t come out in mass protest at the corruption the government is riddled with. I hope they don’t. Setting our police force against ourselves would cause bloodshed. They would have no choice in the matter.
All the cracks are showing now. Somewhere, somehow, a general election should be forced this year simply by using what the EU hasn’t already taken away from us in due process of law. .
Looking at the colossal salaries of these bankers and their ancilliaries, there can be no doubting the existence of the charmed "inner circle".
Thinking further on my comments above, perhaps global control are even more organised than one might suspect. The crass stupidity of Brown and silence from the other two leaders could cause one to speculate whether the desired outcome IS actually general riot. Cue the necessity to unleash Europol. They are already here and waiting. They are armed to the teeth and well covered by fascist EU law. Our three political "leaders" show every sign that their own financial futures are guaranteed.
HOWEVER, only 27 European states have signed into central EU control and only 16 of these have the Euro. There are 49 states in total.
Never has there been a time where it is better to sit tight and use what is left of U.K.law.
I've been thinking conspiracy and global control for a long time now. As wars are off the agenda after Bush and the feel my pain brainwashed generation worked so well for them that they would baulke at the word war, they have to motovate the little people into the next world order agenda.
What better way to motovate the prolatariat than to take the butter off their bread and turn us all against each other.
Maybe their open borders agenda worked against them too soon in that the the international gangs, scammers/drug and slave traffickers beat them to the honey pot bank funds and got too much control before their agendas were put into force, hence the race to the bottom with the hurry over the Lisbon treaty.
Declan Ganley of Libertas, who is putting together a pan european political party against the Lisbon treaty, was on radio this morning and said that if people understood the effect of the treaty they would be outraged.
He said that even though his party are playing by their rules and that his views are held by the majoruty of the people of europe, the EU bureaucrats are trying to nobble his party with smear campaigns.
He made it clear he is not anti european and wants a united europe to try and get us out of this economic mess by reshaping the global economy across europe and to make the EU accountable and transparent.
I wish him well, we sure are living in - to quote the spinners - "difficult times".
"Maybe their open borders agenda worked against them too soon in that the the international gangs, scammers/drug and slave traffickers beat them to the honey pot bank funds and got too much control before their agendas were put into force, hence the race to the bottom with the hurry over the Lisbon treaty".
A new thought and very succinctly put, Ann.
Of interest now is an independent attempt by the French government to save their auto industry against the rules of the EU Commission.
Regarding Libertas, I applaud any organisation seeking to bring awareness to the public of the dangers of the Lisbon Treaty. I just hope that newly forming Libertas will not water down the vote for UKIP in the coming June EU parliamentary elections.
All 27 EU member states have their own UKIP equivalent and.together with UKIP, formed the Ind-Dem Alliance within the EU Parliament. As you know, it was by writing personally to every household in Ireland that they helped produce a "No" vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Without that No vote, we would probably all be dead in the water now.
As happened in the recent "Any Questions", government controlled current affairs programmes like this can be expected now to feature a member of Libertas whenever they give UKIP a voice - so divide and conquer!
Good luck to Libertas in Ireland, though.
I was thankful for the help of the Ind Dem Alliance towards the last No vote, but I dont understand how Libertas can affect their impact at the next one. Maybe I'm not getting the politics of the situation and I hope it wont water down UKIP's or Ind Dem's impact next time, but I would have thought the more parties against the treaty would be a good thing.
Anyway Ireland badly needs Libertas against this undemocratic second vote and I hope the people wont be influenced by the downturn and the scarmongering and brainwashing by all govt parties this time round.