Bunga Bunga Mozzarella Risorgimento

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9404454/Libor-scandal-Diamond-gave-fix-order-says-former-right-hand-man.html

Poor Diamond Bob, they’re ganging up on him ‘cos he’s not a Brit from the right school. Always good to experience your chief subordinate plunging the stiletto between the blades, while chatting up a posse of MP’s in the House. With Cowes Week in the offing, it’s reassuring to learn the Old Lady (our Sir Merv of Teflon), and his buddies Turn’er and Tuck’er (the evil regulatory twins) believe that sailing too close to the wind (aka pinching) is OK but not five times and after four warnings. So out went the signal to Agius and Sir Somebody Rake (of Progress fame?), his Deppity Chair, to be summoned to the Star Chamber and there advised that Diamond Bob is a serial pincher, not “one of us” and needs to fall on his marlin spike. But Del Messier (is he English ? – Ed) got there with the stiletto first in the Commons Chamber.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9405794/Barclays-in-denial-over-regulators-lack-of-confidence-in-management.html

I guess the Barclays Board, under the gaze of Diamond Bob, decided, after applying its telescope to its blind eye when the semaphore and flags came fluttering from the Old Lady’s battlements, that throwing Marcus Agius overboard might be enough to appease the Sirens. But no, the signal clearly indicated it was Diamond Bob who was standing the Barclay’s Brig onto a lee shore and into imminent danger of pinching one time too many. One (English)man doing his duty was all well and good but (The Bank of) England expects everyman to behave as honourably and do his respective dooty. As for an American skipper: straight through the scuppers into the foaming main.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9407232/Barclays-hoped-to-tough-it-out-and-retain-Bob-Diamond-as-chief-executive.html

I doubt if “Barclays tried to tough it out and retain Diamond Bob, the indispensable”. It was Bob, by sheer force of his intellect, modesty, integrity (enough sarcastic plaudits – Ed) who thought he could hang tough and face the Board down. Once the Old Lady’s plucked eyebrows start twitching in earnest, Bob asked not for whom they twitched … and offered Agius the poisoned chalice.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9407257/HSBC-boss-quits-for-failing-to-stop-money-laundering.html

What a dangerous sport banking is. Now it’s HSBC’s turn in the dunk tank. Exfenestrating the CCO (Chief Compliance Officer to the uninitiated in banking parlance) is always a ritual move when the hard men with violin cases come calling. But surely it won’t be long before the Lilliputian regulators go for Gulliver himself and demand he tie himself down. Then it will be Lord Green (HM Minister of Trade and Industry), to have his collar felt by the Old Bill with an extradition warrant from the Feds. They’ll go down to a man counting their severance and spouting the bankers’ credo “accountable but not responsible – we had the CCO there to take the blame and the fall”. The CCO is only there to provide plausible deniability.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9406507/Italys-Mozzarella-King-arrested-over-contaminated-cheese.html

From dirty deeds among the UK’s banking élite to the more prosaic world of high Italian corruption and cheese-making. The stuff is made near Napoli – who didn’t know the Camorra was running the show (and paying off all the politicians)? Whatever next – a Bunga Bunga Berlusconi Risorgimento??!!

It’s an ill wind … The phoney war may not last the summer.

Simon