Serious questions must be asked about the governance of Barclays Bank, especially that great black hole where its ethical literacy should be.
A bank, that above all, has been in the dog’s house ever since the 2007/8 banking crisis, and more so after Bob Diamond took control, which should by all rights be doing its upmost to win back the respect, if not the affections, of ordinary British people, has once again shown that it has no empathy for, or understanding of how its customers are hurting.
It just cannot be ignorance, since they are all to a man and woman highly intelligent people? It just cannot be greed, since even in a secular age this goes beyond the pale?
There must be some deep ethical void at the heart of the corporate and individual heart of this institution that causes it to behave in this way, to ignore public opprobrium and to cock a snook at ordinary, hard-working men and women.
For, in simple language, that is what it did when it tried to bury news of its $40m payout for top staff, mainly those in wholesale banking, in the middle of the chancellor’s Budget speech and the following national discussion.
Since institutions are inanimate and cannot make judgements on their own, we then have to look to the boardrooms and executive floors of these bodies to find out what motivates the decision makers.
Since it is highly unlikely that as individuals they have any more ambitions or desires than the rest of us, their collective behaviour sends a very odd message about them as people.
Fundamentally there is no ethical dilemma about the proper remuneration of workers who go beyond the call of duty and the over-compensation of an elite group of workers.
The moral confusion is one of separating narrow self-interest from what we know in our culture as basic right and wrong.
We cannot preach to ordinary workers about being all in the mess together, while at the same time hiding our special privileges and advantages. We are either all in it together, or it is social Darwinianism at its most savage.
Barclays has a lot to think about and those in the boardroom and on the executive floor should book themselves a crash course in business ethics.
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