Banking: What Lies Beneath?

Today has really been a staggering day in the development of the Barclays scandal over LIBOR rate fixing. In the last two days, Chairman Marcus Agious, Chief Executive Bob Diamond and Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier have all resigned.

There have been calls for an inquiry, and the Government proposed an inquiry by the Treasury Select Committee, overseen by its Chairman, Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie. This has been rejected by Labour, who want to see a more impartial, judge-led inquiry similar to the Leveson inquiry. Such an inquiry would undoubtedly not reflect well upon Labour, and it's a credit to Ed Miliband that this is his preferred form of inquiry.

There's no doubt that the irregularities happened whilst Labour was in power, but it remains a point of discussion as to whether they occurred because of the "lack of regulation" by Labour. The Tories say so, although it would appear that at the time, they were actually campaigning for less regulation. Both Cameron and Osborne have said that they "would like nothing more than seeing Ed Balls in the dock". Ed Balls was the City Minister at the time.

So, with the gun seemingly aimed squarely at Labour, why on earth would the Government shy away from a judge-led inquiry which would undoubtedly be embarrassing (if not actually incriminating) for Labour? Could it possibly be that although there may be a gun aimed at Labour, there is a whole battery of cannons aimed at the Tories?

This is a Coalition Government that has spent the last two years blaming everything that they can think of on the previous Labour Government. Why on earth would they want to miss an opportunity for an independent inquiry to land all the blame for this at Labour's door?

Could it be that the Tories know what lies beneath?