The biggest scandal

SEVEN years after HBOS had to be bailed out with £20billion of taxpayers’ money, a report ordered by MPs finally lays bare the greed and incompetence of the senior executives who drove the bank to the brink of collapse.

Former chief executives James Crosby and Andy Hornby are lambasted for pushing the bank’s staff constantly to lend more money, with scant regard for the massive risks they were taking. Meanwhile, former chairman Lord Stevenson (a friend of – you guessed it – Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson) is found to have presided over a board which had a terrifying lack of knowledge and utterly failed to do its job.

The biggest scandal of all, however, is that – despite yesterday’s blistering findings – the guilty men will not be properly punished for a banking disaster that ultimately cost 50,000 jobs.

The reason? The inquiry took so long to complete – after the bankers were allowed to lodge endless legal objections – that, because of the statute of limitations, the law no longer allows fines to be levied.

Thus, the worst they can endure are life bans from the City – some punishment, as all are already so rich they need never work again.

In the US, the authorities have been merciless in pursuing both American and British banks for their part in the great financial crash.

Here, however, our craven political Establishment continues to allow the bankers to run rings around it. Little wonder faith in both our bankers

politicians remains so disturbingly

low.