Steve Bargeton lambasts Enterprise Minister, Jim Mather in today’s political diary in the Dundee Courier for making a remark during a debate on the banking industry.
In response to a comment by Jim Purvis the Lib Dems finance spokesman at Holyrood that Scotland ought to shoulder its fair share of the blame for the banking crisis given that two of the biggest disasters were Scottish based banks. Jim said “Having read about six books on the subject and not seen that hypothesis being put forward by anyone, I am fascinated to know what basis the member has for coming up with that assertion”.
Steve quite rightly points out that both the banks in question are based in Scotland and have the word Scotland in their name. But it is there as far as I can see that their Scottishness ends.
The two in question are doubtless HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
HBOS will be HALIFAX Bank of Scotland and as far as I am aware Halifax is not in Scotland. Also as I remember that the Halifax was considerably bigger than the Bank of Scotland when the two merged.
The other one will be the Royal Bank of Scotland which if memory serves me rightly included the much larger Nat West. And that was most certainly not a Scottish bank. Clearly they kept what they thought was the better name because it had “royal” in it.
So sorry Steve on this one you are wrong and Jim Mather is right. I find it incredible that the Lib Dems are pedalling that sort of tripe in the Scottish Parliament. Let’s get it through all our heads once and for all those two banks were not Scottish and their disastrous policies were not a result of Scottish mismanagement.
