From some of the accounts it seems that yesterday was a missed opportunity by the Select Committee. Lack of a coordinated approach to the questioning, allowing Diamond Geezer to be far too chummy (and complaining about it on Twitter and not to his face FFS). The story seems to be about how he feels terrible about it all and not how, as CEO he was ultimately responsible.

If anything it adds strength to the call for a judge led inquiry rather than a parliamentary one. MPs had an open goal and did a Geoff Thomas.

This is the best and worst example of the sort of cover-up and blatant whitewash that the top toffs now KNOW they can cobble together and get away with. It stinks, but get away with it they have, and will. The fuss will die away and all will carry on as before.

Why did nobody at the Committee have the ability and wit to ask and press the key, and fookin obvious, questions? Even the chair, Tyrie, is whingeing afterwards that Diamond didn't really say anything, well, why didn't you ask him anything?

Tucker at the BoE apparently told Diamond that "it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently". Come again? Why did Diamond not say: "Eh? WTF you on about, Paul? Barclays historical rates do not have "needs". They are just rates. What they are is a fact, and to say they don't always need to appear high is thus directly implying artificial misrepresentation of those rates. If anyone else can advance an explanation of what Tucker could have been hinting at which makes sense, please do.

Del Messier, to whom it was passed on, understood the clear implication. But it wasn't Bob's fault because he did not understand it the same way! So it's just a simple 'mistake' then! And not Bob's fault at all!

Having received and acted upon implementing this almost direct incitement to falsify rates, the submitters (who state the rates) "vigorously resist". The submitter raises this with the compliance office and is told by compliance to stick to the rules. Compliance say they will raise it with senior management but they never do so. So there is the second watershed. The first is the BoE never said or implied that the rate should be fixed, and Diamond didn't at all think they did, but the person he passed the meassage to did, and so the whole thing came about as a result of a simple misunderstanding. Nobody asked why Barclays would commit fraud so lightly, just because of a hint in a summary of a conversation.

The second watershed is that the submitters did refuse and seek specific guidance, were told to stay legal, and compliance would raise the issue of the submitters being instructed to commit major world-class financial fraud with senior management, "but they never do so". WTfookinF? So what happened? Did compiance forget? But of course, as conveniently nobody in compliance brought the "anomaly" to the attention of "senior management" then very conveniently, you can't blame senior management for it.

Nobody explains why the submitters did not press the matter when they heard nothing from compliance. Nobody explains why, if indeed they were told to "stick to the rules", the submitters who were so aghast at the instruction to fake rates, seemingly nevertheless went ahead and faked them, despite not hearing any further.

And all that is before we have Tucker who will no doubt come along and draw the final veil of smoke and mirrors over the affair, so we can all accept that it was just one of those things.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18714083Paul Mason on the BBC website[/url sets out some of the most stinking and disgusting anomalies and exposes many of the warts in this evidence, and fundamental shortcomings in the "investigations" and "inquiries", but this is no more effective than me posting this on here. A few people with the wit to get their heads around it will nod and spit, but there is nothing anyone can do about it, there will be no arrests, no prosecutions, and so the whole interlude is just a monumental waste of time and money. *


*[size=85 I don't exclude the usual possibilty of some junior patsy being sacrificed, but certainly all the big players are immune to anything.[/size

If the US government was not complicit (and I have no reason to think they were) then I think there will be trials.

Those claiming we do not have a 'casino economy' seem to have gone quiet.

Now might be a good time for Diamond to relinquish his US citizenship

I used to work for a major bank and I can assure you that this sort of manipulation has been going on for decades. Nothing to do with modern tech.

There's an interesting article in [url=http://www.economist.com/node/21558281The Economist[/url (no not the one with Osborne's j'accuse moment), that suggests LIBOR fixing went back as far as the late 80s.

[iThe FSA has identified price-rigging dating back to 2005, yet some current and former traders say that problems go back much further than that. “Fifteen years ago the word was that LIBOR was being rigged,” says one industry veteran closely involved in the LIBOR process. “It was one of those well kept secrets, but the regulator was asleep, the Bank of England didn’t care and…[the banks participating were happy with the reference prices.” Says another: “Going back to the late 1980s, when I was a trader, you saw some pretty odd fixings…With traders, if you don’t actually nail it down, they’ll steal it.”[/i

If true, this could well blow up in the tories' faces

This is why Labour want a judge led inquiry, to get the whole picture. I do find it strange that Osbourne seems to accuse pretty much the entire Labour treasury staff of being complicit and knowing what was going on at Barclays, yet we're supposed to believe that the guy who ran the department at Barclays at the time didn't have a clue.

Interesting to see Osbourne following the current Tory strategy of hurling personal insults at Labour politicians yesterday. I guess that's all they've got. I couldn't go into politics, I'd have ted him if I'd been Ed Balls. Then, a raging for no real reason, Kirsty Walk actually asked Milliband what his father would make of the situation at the end of an interview on Newsnight, at this point I would have told her to go f*** herself.
No, politics ain't for me. I don't know how these people can accomplish anything. Battle of the bullies.

[i100[/i times the lowest paid? Bloody hell, you're generous. The [url=http://www.ecology.co.uk/Ecology Building Society[/url have gone for 6 (or 8, something like that).

Contrary to what some may believe, I've never had a problem with anyone making money and if the CEO of a UK-based major company wants to pay his cleaners no more than £10k, I haven't got a problem with him earning £1m. However, if he decides to outsource his cleaning and the cleaners then end up working for a contractor on £6k a year, the CEO's pay drops to £600k

Well I am talking the mid-eighties but fair enough.

I was working for software suppliers and whenever I was on-site and given access to computer systems it was almost necessary to sign in blood. Likewise passwords were delivered in sealed envelopes and those responsible for the hardware security devices (the things that do stuff like PIN translation and verify MAC's) took their jobs very seriously. Banks were a ideal place for a certain type of person to work in IT. We had one chap leave out company to work for Lloyds and as a developer he was awful. He found his niche at the bank being very fastidious and so on. Hot on procedure, rubbish at producing anything.

As to technology making things like this easier to do I still think there is something in it. It is much easier to ask someone to do something wrong in a faceless email rather than face to face.

Get yourself down to the enquiry then and give evidence.

[url=http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/rich-ricci-in-tears-on-dealing-floor-sfo-launches-probe-7920328.htmlNot as tough as they seem[/url

Rich Ricci sheds tears on the trading floor and SFO finally gets what's happening and launches a "probe"

Didn't Macaulay Culkin play him in the film?

Aye, good old Billy No-mates.

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/exclusive-barclays-insider-lifts-lid-on-banks-toxic-culture-7920809.htmlAn insider's view of Barclays trading floor[/url

Sorry, I couldn't care less what the money is, that is nowhere near having a "life"

[url=http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dave-vs-the-banking-giants-channel-4-commissions-new-seriesBank of Dave[/url

Could be the future

Could work - worked for the mutual building societies.

We don't have a 'casino economy'. Hope that helps.

Not sure how that's in anyway relevant to rigging LIBOR. I guess when your so far off the mark to use the term 'casino' in the context of the economy or banking you've already lost any grasp of relevance.

To answer the original question: [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18742140No[/url

I daresay this is a response to the public outrage that is fermenting over this. I think the attitude on QT showed what was going on. Certainly the government politicians were pushing the angle of "keeping things in house" when clearly the public want an independent review/enquiry. Despite John Lydon's failings, he was the only one on the panel who appeared to grasp just how mad we are at the levels of corruption within the establishment. It's been a while since I've seen people so angry about an issue that is relevant to the future of our society.

Yeah because the SFO have such a great track record of bringing successfull prosecutions don't they? Most of the protaganists will be dead by the time that lot have finished investigating anything. It all usually ends up in the "Too Difficult" tray

It's 'you're'. That's called basic literacy.

As to basic economic literacy, I doubt if I could hope to educate you.

We have bankers and financiers gambling with money that is not theirs. Did you spot the 'gambling' bit? This is the sort of thing that caused the financial crisis. Remember that? Happened in 2008. People buying debts and feck knows what else. Not with their own money.

Much so-called investment is nothing other than a gamble – it is a bet that you will end up with more than you put in, but the latter is possible, to a greater a lessor degree, depending on the situation.

So, for instance, that's why (to give but one specific example) paid into two ISAs (these are supposedly 'savings' schemes). The first was a straightforward one. It now has about £5K of my money in it. Do you know how much interest that earned in the last year? £10. The bank in question got to play with my money for 12 months and they gave me a tenner for that.

Second one had a percentage of investment risk built in. I thought that might not be a bad idea with a little money – at the least risky of the riskier options, so to speak.

After around six years, it's just getting back to what I put in in the first place.

So not remotely a gamble. No, no, no – not a sort of a bet. And these things were sold as good ideas for savings – they're an Individual Savings Account, don't forget. They were portrayed as a sensible and safe way to save. Saving's good and responsible, yes? A tenner on effing 5k.

We've been conned.

And it seems that you've been conned more than most.

Or do you actually really believe that everything's hunky dory and people are just having a whinge instead of, for instance, going out and getting a job, because there are loads of jobs out there really if only people would be prepared to work for nothing. Or, erm, they could make loads more money easily because pay is rising in real terms, the cost of living is going down and it's a piece of the proverbial to get yourself a better job with more pay (and if you need to train and learn more, you'll easily get a loan to do that).

We know that you refuse to accept that there has been a widening income gap between those at the very top and everybody else (although presumably you were walkabout the last time that I responded to your denials of that with a shed load of info). Or was that the time you had a minor hissy fit and flounced away from the discussion rather than respond to the data?

Are you Bob Diamond's bag carrier?

Are you Bob Diamond?

T'was always thus, I had an almost carbon copy experience with two Individual Savings Accounts (there's that word, "Savings" again) back in '99 to '04 - the money I made on two £5k accounts over that period could have been made far, far easier, and quicker, if I'd stuck the ten grand under the bed and put £10 of it on red at a casino.

And after all of that, to rub salt in the wounds, I had to cash them in to pay a fekkin tax bill.

But it's not a gamble – and it's not an approach that is remotely reflected in the way that those oh-so-sober bastions of society, the financiers and bankers behave. Oh no.

And there never was a time when you could go to a bank and trust that bank to actually look after your money properly – and pay you a small but regular amount of interest on your deposit account: oops, did I mention an account that was phased out to be replaced by more lucrative ones for the gambling s who, via political decisions, were deregulated so that they could do more gambling.

How anyone can claim – and presumably keep a straight face – that gambling is not key to the economy these days, and it central to the crisis, is beyond me.

You can, incidentally, download a [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Casino-Economy/dp/B001IKMCKC/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1341691587&sr=8-16The Casino Economy[/url by Noam Chomsky for just 89p.

Or there's a book, first published in 1989, called [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Casino-Economy-Planning-1990s/dp/0860919676/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1341691699&sr=8-6Beyond the Casino Economy[/url by people who obviously didn't know what they were talking about (indeed, the phrase crops up all over the place).

But hey, someone who denies that real wages have fallen for the majority also scoffs at such a phrase.

As I said, he's either Bob Diamond or Bob Diamond's bag boy.

But did the investment bankers cause the crisis? The failure was one of government policy (especially in the USA) and in traditional banking. Let's think about the UK situation - Northern Rock (not an investment bank), HBoS (not an investment bank), RBS - principal problem was a poor acquisition, Lloyds - messed up due to Brown facilitating a "rescue" of HBoS - which I pointed out at the time was stupid - why weaken a sound bank by encouraging to takeover a broke one?