Talk is cheap. Action is expensive. But Bob Diamond’s inaugural Today Business Lecture was clever talk. The chief executive of Barclays, one of the UK’s iconic banks, sought to convince his BBC radio audience that the banks are dedicated to supporting economic growth, by taking risks on behalf of businesses, big and small. No doubt, he believed every word. But should you? No.
Mr Diamond is one of those clever investment bankers who, as my colleague John Kay has noted, now manage most important global banking institutions. He focused on rebuilding trust. Trust does indeed need rebuilding: at a private discussion of the final report of the Independent Commission on Banking, on which I served, a Conservative member of parliament stated that one of the few issues on which all constituents agreed was on their loathing for the bankers.
Mr Diamond argued that banks need to show they support growth, accept responsibility for what has gone wrong and “become better and more effective citizens”. On the first, he argued that banks help the economy by taking risks. On the second, gone was earlier talk about an end to the “period of remorse and apology”. Instead, we had more remorse, along with insistence that “no taxpayer money should ever again be put at risk to rescue a failed or failing bank”. On the last, he stated that, among other things: “business must increase profits in a way that creates sustainable value, not just short-term gain”.