Published at 09:09, Monday, 23 July 2012

I HAVE been baffled by our politicians’ constipated wrangling over how to investigate the wrong doing at Barclays.

Can I echo the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, who said that: “If this had happened in America those responsible would have been led away in handcuffs.”

So why does this not happen in the UK?

The bank, and its senior executives have admitted obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception.

However, there is a long and deafening silence from Scotland Yard which is strangely reminiscent of their initial reluctance to pursue News International over the telephone hacking scandal.

Readers will recall their Kafkaesque logic that ‘there was not enough evidence to warrant and investigation’.

Of course, subsequent investigations have unearthed the evidence, which is what an investigation is meant to do. You would have thought Scotland Yard might have known this.

For that matter, the best brains in Scotland Yard should be aware of the criminal offence of, obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception. The most lowly police constable knows this.

In light of this incredible inertia could someone, maybe our local MP or Northumberland’s Chief Constable, answer this question: “What is the threshold of income (or influence) that places an individual, or organisation, above the criminal laws of this land?”

T. MOODY,

Ovington

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk