Oil money ‘bailed’ out Barclays

Barclays “misled” the UK authorities by rejecting the offer of UK state aid during the banking crisis, Gordon Brown has claimed.

He said the firm, led at the time by American Bob Diamond, then accepted “state money” from oil rich Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

He said: “I was always unhappy that Barclays chose to use their deal to make a political statement – denouncing our state recapitalisation of the banks.

“The fact that it was state money from Qatar and UAE that bailed them out did not discourage them from trying to score cheap political points and build a myth about the awfulness of state interventions.”