Jon Snow, the veteran news anchor, presented Monday's 'Dispatches' (Channel 4) and asked one of the most rhetorical questions ever; 'Can you trust your Bank?'. The answer, of course, is an overwhelming 'No!'. Much of Snow's territory had been well covered before: the move of the local bank from a pillar of respectability to a mad gambler playing with billions in casino capitalism, the LIBOR scandal and the rigging of the inter-lending rules, the neglect of the New Labour years and attempt by all to (mixing of metaphors here by 'thetvreviewguy') jump on the bandwagon after the horse has bolted (actually, as mixed metaphors go, that's not too bad). Snow has a nice line in interview patter, dubbing Ed Balls 'Lightouch Ed' during a face-to-face (the Conservatives were asking for less regulation at the time).There's little cause for optimism; banks and the financial sector ('Big' City Accountants and Law) live to subvert and defeat the Regulator; read Nicholas Shaxson on global tax avoidance and evasion and you'll appreciate how rotten the sector has become. There are good and fine people still in Banking but it has become such an ungovernable monster that it is increasingly becoming impossible to manage and regulate; the Vickers Report, a sort of Glass-Steagall Act for the UK, is not due to be fully implemented until 2019; we'll see how many of the recommendations come into law. Jon Snow's 'Dispatches' demonstrated just how far the sector has sunk in the public mind and how far it has to go to regain even a modicum of respect.
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