Politicians Have No Right to Tar and Feather Bankers

Abstract

Short version of letter published in the Financial Times - full version downloadable. Having disregarded systemically risky debt, leverage, selling on and evasion of regulation, politicians are as culpable as the bankers they now ritually tar and feather - indeed more so, given their responsibilities. It would have been more fitting for politicians to have spoken before. However, this failure need not imply that there is now no place for politics in relation to "technical" issues such as accountancy standards. The argument that these matters are so complicated that non-specialists would not understand should be uncovered as a plea for keeping things that way. The treatment of accountancy standards, market modelling and regulatory debate as a kind of Latin, with the exclusionary implications, is both dangerous and unacceptable.

Keywords: financial regulation, accountancy standards, governance, independence versus democracy, European Court of Justice