Former Barclays boss regrets not sacking Bob Diamond 15 years ago

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/09/barclays-bob-diamond-martin-taylor
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Martin Taylor, a former boss of Barclays, has revealed how Bob Diamond offered to quit in 1998 after big trading losses in Russia and breaches of the rules that were not made public.

Taylor, who left in the wake of the Russian losses, admitted he regretted not accepting the resignation of Diamond, who was then the new boss of the Barclays Capital (BarCap) investment bank. Diamond was promoted to chief executive in January 2011 but resigned last week following the Libor scandal.

Writing in the Financial Times, Taylor said: "I suspect the subsequent history of the business would have been very different had I asked him to go. I deserve blame for being among the first to succumb to the myth of Diamond's indispensability, to which some in Barclays were still in thrall only a matter of days ago."

Taylor said the events helped bolster the case for the reforms outlined by the independent commission on banking, of which he was a member, to ringfence high street banks from casino investment banks. He explained how Diamond had hired traders to bolster trading in Russian financial instruments but that the country soon defaulted on rouble-denominated debt.

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Glass-Steagall should never have been repealed