One Saturday just before Christmas 2007, there was a knock at the Edinburgh home of the late Alistair Darling, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer in Gordon Brown's Labour Government. On the doorstep, proffering a gift-wrapped panettone, was Fred Goodwin, the boss of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), who lived nearby. This was no social call: Goodwin had come to beg for help to keep his bank afloat. His visit was Darling's first foreboding of the catastrophe that would engulf RBS a few months later, culminating in a £45 billion taxpayer bailout. A much-mourned Darling died in 2023. A disgraced Goodwin lives a quiet life on a £600,000-a-year pension from the bank he almost destroyed. Neither man could have imagined on that December day that it would take 17 long, strife-ridden years before that bank would finally emerge from state ownership. ...read
I had a ringside seat as arrogant men destroyed RBS - it offers a dire warning today: RUTH SUNDERLAND
01/06/25 10:34
