Greens find their banker of choice – a £1.4bn fraudster
THE heartstrings were taut, a modest sized violin at the ready. Green MSP Andy Wightman had come to First Minister’s Questions with one of those deportation stories that chip away at even the stony bosoms of the Holyrood press gallery.
Kweku Adoboli had been seized and taken to the notorious Dungavel detention centre. Any day now, he could be shoved on a plane to Ghana, a country he last saw aged four. Who knows why the Home Office chose to pick on Mr Adoboli, an upstanding member of society. In fact, so upstanding he spend ten weeks on his pins in the dock at Southwark Crown Court, where he was jailed in 2012 for the biggest bank fraud in British history.
£1.4billion. 500 jobs lost at UBS as a result. The Greens have finally found a banker they like – Ghana’s answer to Nick Leeson.
‘He has now served his sentence and has been making a positive contribution to society by working with industry leaders and politicians,’ Wightman pleaded in mitigation.
The Home Office are a brutal bunch when it comes to chucking people out the country but I don’t predict a run on ‘Keep Calm and Keep Kweku’ T-shirts. There’s a reason no one ever wrote a country and western song called Shoreditch Rogue Trader Blues.
The first FMQs after recess was a muted affair. Sombrely they lumbered into the chamber, faces already weary-etched after barely 72 hours back.
None of the parties has its woes to seek. The SNP is stuck with Alex Salmond, even though he’s not a member any more. The Tories hate each other or Brexit or both. Labour can’t order a cream cheese bagel without offending the Jewish community. Botulism is polling better than the Lib Dems.
Nicola Sturgeon struggled under questioning from Ruth Davidson, the Tories’ Mama Bear taking up the plight of crime victims.
The First Minister became flustered when pressed by Labour chief Richard Leonard on online safety in schools. Had a trouble-ridden messaging app been shut down or not?
She looked dazed and clueless. She leaned towards John Swinney, who whispered in her ear. Evidently, she didn’t like what she heard. ‘We will continue to ensure the safety of children is paramount,’ she said, ‘until we are absolutely satisfied all of the issues have been properly resolved. I believe that is the appropriate action for the Deputy First Minister to have taken.’
Her words were more pointed than the daggers she was drawing her Education Secretary. Swinney is the SNP’s great fixer but Scotland’s schools are broken beyond his ability to repair. The Deputy First Minister has the look of a middle manager but the temperament of a middleweight. If he can’t brawl it out or bawl it down, he has nothing.
Tavish Scott had a go over standardised testing, which his Lib Dems and Labour assure us is prompting nervous breakdowns in classrooms. No wonder. Some of the questions are puzzlers. ‘Derek has four apples and a £13billion deficit. If he starts his leadership bid from the Finance Department, how long will it take to reach the First Minister’s Office?’
A rare note of collegiality was struck by gentlemanly Tory MSP John Scott, who offered a solution to rail disruptions in Ayr. The town’s crumbling Station Hotel has forced services to terminate at Prestwick Town and Scott suggested the First Minister ask nationalised Prestwick Airport to let commuters park in its empty spaces for free.
At least, he added in Churchillian tones, ‘until the present crisis is resolved’ – making a ten-minute replacement bus service sound like The Taking of Pelham 123.
‘I cannot immediately think of any objection anybody could have to it,’ Sturgeon replied. It was, in her own begrudging way, a compliment.