And Then They Turn to Blackmail

The latest twist in the Barklays LIBOR price fixing scandal is that the (now former) CEO of the bank tried to blackmail the Bank of England:

The chairman resigns to save the CEO. The CEO makes a public threat to drag the central bank into the mire. And the previous government. And the Treasury.

Next morning, the CEO resigns and the chairman re-installs himself to "oversee transition". The police, who said they could not prosecute, now say they might.

You have just seen the British establishment operating at a level of panic and indecision on a par with the Norway disaster in 1940. And it is not over.

These are people whose job is to speak to each other on a daily basis. But trust is shattered at the very top of the financial system.

He was claiming that the Bank of England approved the manipulation of the crucial interbank lending rate, there are witnesses who corroborate this:

On a crucial day (29 October 2008) the Bank of England's Paul Tucker had a conversation with Bob Diamond, as a result of which, more junior Barclays employees came away with the impression that they had been instructed by the central bank to manipulate Libor down.

I want the same thing as the cat, someone frog marched out of their offices in handcuffs.