In Japan they call it “honourable suicide”. Despite already having the highest suicide rate of any nation, numbers surged even higher following the stock market crash of 1997. And as recently as 2007, one cabinet minister took his life when under investigation for an expenses scandal.
In Zurich and Wall Street they talk about “crash-related jumpers”. Perhaps surprisingly, Switzerland has the highest suicide rate after Japan. Wall Street has always had a tendency to exaggerate numbers and perpetuate myths – so no change there then.
I’m not condoning suicide – but I have an agonising respect for such willingness to shoulder the blame so unambiguously. Which is more than I can say for our lot.
Errant cabinet ministers and members of parliament that are pushed out of office instead of ‘doing the decent thing’ rile me. And it’s not just politicians – though they’re rarely far from the news when it comes to a bit of fiddling (double entendre intended). Bankers still haven’t got the hang of repentance or remorse, although they have ‘nailed’ their sense of entitlement.
And now the Co-operative Bank finds itself in the red to the tune of £1.3billion, an overdraft that is hard to ignore. They must have seen it coming? Yet I haven’t noticed anyone queuing to hand back the bonuses pocketed while running up that level of debt.
The Co-operative debacle isn’t new, and for me at least, there’s a faint whiff of Equitable Life – another ‘conservative’ institution, respected by many, which was mismanaged to the point of collapse. My memory might be failing me, but I don’t recall anyone there returning bonuses or ‘falling on their sword’ at the time. Nor any of the other executives of public companies and mutuals that made huge errors of judgment with other people’s money.
If Joe Public fiddles expenses it’s gross misconduct. Joe Public’s unauthorised overdraft means a penalty and being blacklisted. How can this be right?
The level of personal responsibility seems inversely proportionate to the size of financial reward, or the significance and influence of the role.
Higher up the food chain, there was no atonement or reparation fromthe architects of the last financial meltdown. The likes of Goodwin, Applegarth, and Hornby trousered the loot and avoided responsibility. It’s the same for King and Tiner, who denied any responsibility – they took the cash despite the problems developing on their watch.
We all occasionally make bad choices, or deliberately do wrong. How we atone for it marks us out. In that regard it’s hard to find a better example than Jack Profumo.
After admitting he’d lied to the House of Commons, he resigned from Parliament. Soon after he volunteered to clean toilets at Toynbee Hall, an East London charity. He continued working there for the remainder of his life, eventually becoming their chief fundraiser.
If only some of our miscreants would do some toilet cleaning, it’s a metaphor that would resonate strongly with me.
