This story appears in the Guardian and other places:
Commenting on the resignation of Northern Rock’s chairman Matt Ridley, Liberal Democrat Acting Leader and Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable MP said: “The Government should have made Mr Ridley’s departure a condition of its loan, rather than waiting for him to go.
“Furthermore there are other directors, including Derek Wanless, who are equally culpable. All of the senior management of the company led by Mr Applegarth should have been cleared out on day one.
“I nonetheless welcome this step as belated recognition that somebody in Northern Rock should be held accountable for its failures and for the exposure of public money which is now at risk.”
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5 Comments
Let that be a warning to the Shadow Treasury research team if they get their sums wrong 😉
What a load of rubbish. Vince is on typical reactionary form. Leaders of companies should never be forced to resign before the details of a crisis are known. Part of their huge pay packets includes a duty to troubleshoot when things go wrong. Booting out management and getting someone new in in the middle of a crisis can not only cause market shocks and destabalise recovery, but also makes decision making so much harder.
Surely we can do better than this tripe?
Dear ‘Detail seeker’, The details of Northern Rock’s crisis were known long before the bank had to go cap-in-hand to the B0E; NR lent mortgages without properly establishing ability to pay and fooled itself that it had palmed off the risk to the money markets. When those markets called its bluff, it had to be rescued. Vince Cable and the Lib Dems had been warning against this kind of lunacy for years and had we been in government we would have made sure the FSA would have long ago pulled the plug on such irresponsible lending.
Line ’em up against a wall and shoot every third one.
Perhaps it would have been enogh for Vince to appear on the lunchtime news and say their leadership was under question?