Boris Johnson, our esteemed London Mayor who is loved by all and sundry the length and breadth of the land has said something I agree with. About bankers. It’s a massive shock but I’m going to try to get over it.
In an interview Jeremy Paxman mentioned that Vince Cable had been telling anti-banker jokes, Boris replied that “attacking bankers will not help boost the UK economy”. Well of course it wont, but it’s good for the soul, which is much more important than the economy.
I mean where would we be if we started doing things on the basis of whether they help “the economy” or not. They can’t tax smiles or bad poetry but we can still judge that doing one is better than the other, it just never shows up on a balance sheet.
Boris went on to explain that Cable’s jokes reflected “a genuine, deep public rage at bankers” – yes – they stem from “a feeling that the risks they took led to an economic catastrophe” – yes – and there is “a sense that they got away with it” to which even Paxman felt compelled to shriek “Well they have!”
Boris is of course unphased. In Boris World you keep your morals in one place and then there’s business. You can’t start worrying about whether something is right or wrong when money’s on the line. It’s why the hearts of Tories are always in such high demand by transplant patients – because they’ve never been used.
