Anyone else on here think the PM is pissing into the wind a little bit here?

I for one think that Brown is trying to use Fred Goodwin as a bit of a scapegoat for the entire credit crunch here. Now let me state that I have nothing but contempt for Fred Goodwin either, he’s obviously a ruthless and greedy bastard with zero morals (and I’m talking about his 8 years in charge of RBS, not the way he’s treating his pension entitlement claims), and I think he obviously has nothing to lose in this situation and he knows it. It’s not like if he said “ok then, keep the money” he’d suddenly be public hero number 1, as he’d still be blamed for all RBS’s problems.

But c’mon Gordon, you’re trying to nail a turd to the wall here. Honestly, “seeking legal advice” is probably going to get you bloody nowhere. Goodwin made all his deals years ago regarding payments and pensions, and there’s going to be all sorts of cast iron clauses protecting it (FFS, he was in charge of the UK’s biggest bank, he’s not thick!). And whilst he is indeed a greedy and ruthless git, Fred Goodwin was managing RBS in an economic era governed by Gordon Brown himself as Chancellor of the Exchequer. By trying to blame Fred Goodwin for everything, Brown is indirectly pointing the finger of blame back at himself in an enormous way, as it was his reckless approach to the economy that promoted all the banks to act in the way they did. He’d have done FAR better to have kept this one quiet from the public, as it is backfiring on him spectacularly!

Don’t get me wrong, as a taxpayer and therefore shareholder in RBS (as well as sadly a customer!) I would love for Fred Goodwin to turn around, apologise, hand his pension back etc. But it ain’t gonna happen! All that is going to happen is for Gordon Brown to show us he’s even more of an incompetent idiot than we already thought he was! 😕

yep. Gordo micro managing a bank…

I think the real issue is why was he allowed to resign and keep all of that obscene pension pot? To my mind he should have just been sacked for incompetance. I have read that the rest of the board had agreed he should go, so why allow him to resign.

Smells very poopy to me as does much of this whole banking lark

Gordo: Fred, would you mind awfully forgoing your £693,000-a-year for life pension in light of the “bit of a do” we’ve had over all this bank stuff ?
Fred: *#@&% off
Gordo: OK, fair enough, thanks.

Two things here;
One – GB is simply using this as a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that yet again, he has spunked a HUGE amount of money after RBS. £300 billion, I think is the figure. Once again, he’s doing this in an almost dictator like style, simply deciding it shall be done, with no debate in Parliament, no chance for the people to have their say.
Two – Will GB be returning his pension in due course, after all, he has been at the helm of a collossal **** up!

The Daily Mash have a very good take on this today! http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/brown-refuses-to-hand-back-pension-200902271606/

.. and wasn’t the pension deal agreed by one of Calamity Brown’s top financial advisors – Lord Minted or something?
Also, I love that he reckons he is entitled to the full pension as he was entitled to hefty payoff when leaving but didn’t take it. That payment would have been largely made up of RBS shares which are worth <ahem> how much?

I quite liked John Prescott’s solution

Take Goodwin’s pension off him & let him sue if he thinks he entitled to it

uplink, the pie eating Prescott would be VERY close to the wind if he did that. Bear in mind that he himself has a tidy pension for having fcuked up as well…..

That has got to be the best Daily Mash article ever! Shame its all true though…

>FFS, he was in charge of the UK’s biggest bank, he’s not thick!). <

Not the way I see it.

It’s the mark of the man that as a millionaire already many times over he’s now prepared to go down in history as someone who fcuked it up then dashed for the cash.

The guys a megalomaniac (ABN debacle) and RBS Boards sycophantic backing of him has been their undoing.

piedi di formaggio – Member

I think the real issue is why was he allowed to resign and keep all of that obscene pension pot? To my mind he should have just been sacked for incompetance. I have read that the rest of the board had agreed he should go, so why allow him to resign.

Smells very poopy to me as does much of this whole banking lark

Too bloody right! It’s all a bit “funny handshake” and “gentlemens agreement” if you ask me. A big boys club, where they all look after each other even if they screw up as an individual.

One comment by Vince Cable (most trustworthy politician out there in my view, shame as Lib Dem he’ll never get anywhere) on the BBC news summed it up for me though. If RBS had been anything but a bank, it would have been allowed to go to the wall instead of being propped up by the taxpayer. As such, any pensions to be paid to ex employees (even though Goodwin should have been sacked, but that’s not the point here) would have been capped to an absolute maximum of £27k per year. A significant £666k (hmmm, the number of the Devil, significant?) per year less than the taxpayer will have to stump up now as a result. And all because Gordon promoted reckless behaviour of the banks in the first place, then offered them a ridiculous safety net (public buyout of RBS) if everything went tits up!

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Two things here;
One – GB is simply using this as a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that yet again, he has spunked a HUGE amount of money after RBS. £300 billion, I think is the figure. Once again, he’s doing this in an almost dictator like style, simply deciding it shall be done, with no debate in Parliament, no chance for the people to have their say.
Two – Will GB be returning his pension in due course, after all, he has been at the helm of a collossal **** up!

Yup, absolutely right, only it has totally backfired in his face, and brought more highlight to the £300billion of public money he has spunked on RBS as a result!

I’m sorry, Brown needs to go ASAP. I used to defend him as being bullied by Tony Blair and having been left a legacy of shit because of Tony’s reign, but he’s showing just how incompetent he actually is when he has to do it for himself, and he’s making the financial crisis far worse by his actions (ridiculous bank buyouts, interest rate cuts, lack of inflation etc.). GET HIM OUT NOW!

It’s the mark of the man that as a millionaire already many times over he’s now prepared to go down in history as someone who fcuked it up then dashed for the cash.

Oh totally, I agree. He’s an @rsehole, no 2 ways about it! What does he stand to gain from handing the cash back though?

He is a very clever man though obviously. He is in a situation where he knows he’s going to smell of poo whatever happens, so he’s sticking to his guns. I don’t think it’s at all commendable, but what would most people do in that situation? Well, most people aren’t clever enough to have created the situation of being a multi millionair with a pension of £693k per year are they?!?! VERY clever man, sadly he only used his brain for personal gain at the expense of the RBS customers and staff (and now the taxpayer thanks to Gordon Brown!), and not for any communal gain!

PMSL @ that daily mash article.

CLASSIC! 😀

Vince Cable (most trustworthy politician out there in my view, shame as Lib Dem he’ll never get anywhere)

If he’d been in either of the other two parties, he’d have either been turned into a duplicitous, scheming, money-grubbing bastard or a brown-nosed, yes-man sycophant. Or, he’d have got nowhere within the party.

>so he’s sticking to his guns<

Which was entirely my point on the ABN situ and look where that got them

RBS should have been allowed to go bust THEN the UKG should have stepped in. Instead we’ll be undewriting the bad debt for a generation – including that assholes pension fund.

RBS should have been allowed to go bust THEN the UKG should have stepped in. Instead we’ll be undewriting the bad debt for a generation – including that assholes pension fund.

Again, I totally agree, and not just cos my (minimal) overdraft would have been swallowed up as a bad debt! 😉

Sadly in the UK, sentiments seem to get involved far too much in the decision making of our top politicians. MG Rover was a “British Institute” apparently, and there was “no way we could let it go bust” (which of course it did anyway, after ridiculous amounts of public money was spunked on it). Sadly just like MG Rover, the Govt views the major banks in the same light, as institutes that “cannot go bust” no matter how irresponsible they are. As a result I know of many SME’s that are going bust right now, because despite bulging order books and skilled staff, the banks have taken away any credit, forcing them to pay suppliers up front whilst their customers then expect up to 90 days credit even!

Why always blame the Government – Lloyds TSB has performed very well (until having to take over HBOS)through a more traditional and conservative strategy during the period when a number of its competitors got too greedy and ended up in deep, deep sh*t! In a market economy businesses need to take responsibility for their own activities.

Goodwin is an arrogant, greedy *anker, and should not benefit from the decisions he made which have exacerbated an already difficult economic situation, and has led to large numbers of RBS employees losing their jobs. Much of his pension benefit was discretionary anyway.

Er, no-one considered the role of directors’ duties here, and whehter the actions of the board and remuneration cttee were acting intra vires?

There could well be an opportunity to bring a devitaive action.

Wonder of the directors’ indemnities would hold up to this?

Or do I only think these things because I’m a corporate lawyer advising on company law every day…?

Banks have played Russsian roulette with the UKG and dared them not to let them go down – the ‘we’re too big’ mentality that got them all the sh1tter in the first place. Unfortunately Broon and Darling swallowed that hook line and sinker instead of calling their bluff. The market should have decided – plenty of other banks who were not as profligate…

plenty of other banks who were not as profligate…

That should really read

plenty of other non-Scottish banks who were not as profligate…

😉

Agree ourmaninthenorth – wee Madge MacDonald already has her guns trained on them 😉

Fair doos Flashheart – if your going to **** up the finanacial reputation of an entire country you might as wel do it with your only major banks

Sue the board (bearing in mind the gov’t is a shareholder – prefs, I think). They’ll soon turn on Fred.

I don’t think the legal routes have been exhausted, but the political will might get in the way of some interesting precedent being set here, i.e. making use of the common law (and now statutory) rules on directors’ fiduciary duties. If they’ve done any of this stuff after that part of the Companies act 2006 came in, then there is a reall possibility that the stakeholder interests could be used to give them a good kicking.

Would quite like to see a bitch fight between Fred the Shred and Gordon the Moron….

The original post was “Gordo v’s Fred”

For “Gordo” replace with “UK security services” AKA spooks. Get them to arrange a quick accident for Fredy while out jogging and all the problems are solved, Gordo wins and tax payers save £700k a year. But it’s probably not as simple as that…

I’m confused. Surely on taking over at RBS the Govt would have said “That Goodwin f&*%er has to go” to which the next question is an almost automatic “How much will that cost us?”

Now Darling says he only learned last week…I honestly don’t know which i find more incompetent. The politicians spunking gazillions of pounds when clearly they’re not asking the right questions, the Board of RBS who clearly didn’t think through the pension rights of it’s CEO, or the tosser himself who more or less bankrupted the country for a generation, but still wants to live high on the hog.

ourmaninthenorth – Member

Sue the board (bearing in mind the gov’t is a shareholder – prefs, I think). They’ll soon turn on Fred.

I don’t think the legal routes have been exhausted, but the political will might get in the way of some interesting precedent being set here, i.e. making use of the common law (and now statutory) rules on directors’ fiduciary duties. If they’ve done any of this stuff after that part of the Companies act 2006 came in, then there is a reall possibility that the stakeholder interests could be used to give them a good kicking.

You’re the lawyer, so I’ll trust your judgement on this, but I think they only way that Brown will manage to do anything will be to change the law regarding pensions. Only that won’t affect Snr. Goodwin, as this has already been done, so it will be a bit of a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted!

The original post was “Gordo v’s Fred”

Yup, it was, but ANYBODY who wants to abuse my thread and turn it into an anti Govt. rant has my full support 😉

I’m confused. Surely on taking over at RBS the Govt would have said “That Goodwin f&*%er has to go” to which the next question is an almost automatic “How much will that cost us?”

With good lawyers, they’d have ended up paying him significantly less than 6 months salary I’m sure, even if they couldn’t dismiss him on grounds of gross misconduct! Significantly less than £693,000 per annum for the remainder of his life no less.

Now Darling says he only learned last week…I honestly don’t know which i find more incompetent. The politicians spunking gazillions of pounds when clearly they’re not asking the right questions, the Board of RBS who clearly didn’t think through the pension rights of it’s CEO, or the tosser himself who more or less bankrupted the country for a generation, but still wants to live high on the hog.

Who’s the most incompetent? Clearly not Fred Goodwin! He has done exactly what he set out to do originally, and has lined his pockets with gold at other people’s expense! Certainly a man with no morals, but he is obviously clearly very competent at achieving what he wants.

Personally I don’t know whether I’d rather my money ends up in Fred Goodwin’s pockets, or Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s. At least with Fred Goodwin you could guarantee where the money would be going (property abroad, fast cars, expensive lifestyle no doubt), but with Gordon and Alistair it’s like any money we “give” them, they end up losing it down the financial black hole that there seems to be in Downing Street, somewhere between number 10 and number 11…

Incidentally, 20something posts in, and not a single Labour stalwart popping in to defend the Govt’s actions, and praise Brown’s actions on this matter. This is totally unlike any political thread on STW I’ve ever seen before. Maybe their silence suggests even the Labour lovers accept Brown has f**ked up royally this time, and it’s unacceptable? 😉

Actually, I think the government acted completely correctly and are continuing to act in a calm and dignified …….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA No, I fekkin don’t. And the tories have fekkall to smirk about either.
There are some societies where the shame and disgrace Goodwin, Hornby et al have brought on themselves would lead to some ritual suicides. Others where the State might just execute people for being so grossly criminally incompetent.
Here we reward them. There you go fred, nearly finished off a major bank and brought the economy to it’s knees. tens of thousands of jobs lost. Here you go, half a mill a year, hope that’s enough for you to get by on.

Incidentally, 20something posts in, and not a single Labour stalwart popping in to defend the Govt’s actions, and praise Brown’s actions on this matter.

I wonder what the tories would have done? Oh, thats right the same thing once they had realised what the consequences to the economy would have been to let a bank go to the wall.

Goodwin is a prime example of the self-centered greedy t*ssers that created this mess (there’s an awful lot of them in this country these days)and Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown are the ones who let them get away with it.

And we voted them in.

brown and darling may well be incompetent ****ts
but fred is a greedy jis stain imho

and yeah i am 100% certain the torries would be just as useless at dealing with the current economic crisis im sure they have just as many if not more chums on boards of banks etc

The bottom line is why was this guy not just sacked for incompetence the same as someone less rich would have been? Why was there need for ‘negotiation’.

Also, why is he not automatically stripped of his title ‘For services to banking’ without hesitation. I mean, the government is taking the p*** isn’t it, to even pretend they are changing things when this entangled with the ‘old boy network’.

where does he live? Shareholders must be told!

There was an Opinion Column in the Times the other day going on about something very similar (but before all this pension stuff came out), basically saying that if you mug someone in the street you get done/go to jail etc, if you mug someones life savings via (mis)managing a bank you get to buy a yacht.
The whole situation stinks.

Maybe it’s in his contract and it’d break his contract not to pay him, but then it probably wasn’t in his contract to fu*k the bank up.

Simple solution; publish his address in the Sun, wait for nature to take it’s course…

Back to the OP’s topic, there is NO doubt he is being made a scapegoat. Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless Darling need someone to blame and he’s the one of choice and present (last week it was all bankers). The whole thing stinks and I’m sure they knew about his deal back in October…

Anyway Sir Fred certainly f**ked up without a doubt but what about the rest of the RBS board and HBOS et al., what deals have they been paid off with? 🙄 Also doubt that Brown, Darling etc will give up any of their pensions!

Can’t the state just arrange for the assasination of Sir Fred? Anyone know how big his widows pension is?

When this was first covered on the BBC, the following item was about the deaths of four servicemen in Afghanistan.

If I was Fred, I’d be **** embarrassed at how “worth” has become such an abused word.

GJP – Member

Can’t the state just arrange for the assasination of Sir Fred? Anyone know how big his widows pension is?

I wouldn’t defend the bloke’s actions for a second, but that’s a bit extreme, he’s not a terrorist, and this is the UK not the USA!

Finding a loophole to make sure he can’t get his pension, and that it has to go directly into the customers of RBS’ pockets would be far more preferable.

mboy – Member

GJP – Member

Can’t the state just arrange for the assasination of Sir Fred? Anyone know how big his widows pension is?

I wouldn’t defend the bloke’s actions for a second, but that’s a bit extreme, he’s not a terrorist, and this is the UK not the USA!

Finding a loophole to make sure he can’t get his pension, and that it has to go directly into the customers of RBS’ pockets would be far more preferable.

Perhaps we should charge him with Treason

Personally, I would quite happily shoot him – it would at least guarantee myself a roof over my head for the next 25 years or so 😀

I spent 10 hrs with GB yesterday and believe it or not as a “human being” he’s a nice guy, funny, sharp and incredibly clever – downside is he’s a shit politician and economist.

On the Sir Fred point why shouldn’t he keep his pension, he’s worked for it all his life (it’s a pot). I didn’t hear all the lefties crying out about Neil Kinnock and his raping of the EU (which is a bigger scandal imo) or Scargill etc etc..