Dispatches: Britain’s Bankers – Still Cashing In
Channel 4
Tears, Lies and Videotape
ITV 1
REMEMBER “the politics of envy”? That useful little phrase parroted by politicians, broadcasters and broadsheet columnists of left and right during the Tony Blair years? It used to be so “old” Labour to criticise the antics of the fat cats in the City of London and Parliament. Well, now it’s the latest craze. Self-styled pundits everywhere, who have dusted off words such as “greed”,“morality” and “fairness” are indulging in orgies of furious finger-wagging at the people they once admired.
Television news reports and documentaries teem with talking heads passionately insisting they told us so, even if they spent the past decade saying the exact opposite. While City executives paid each other bonuses amounting to the gross national product of a developing nation and the Government banned all but “light touch” regulation of their wealthy friends, many of today’s pundits were as happy as Larry. But it’s amazing how differently you feel when your own share values and house prices have crashed.
Dispatches: Britain’s Bankers –Still Cashing In was a good example of the new recession documentary – a mixture of hindsight and warning. It was fronted by journalist Jane Moore, who is actually one of our more respectable finger-waggers. She had got hold of the employment contracts of a bunch of top bankers and was not afraid to use them. She revealed how the City gravy train is still chugging along nicely, despite the Government’s lofty rhetoric.
The new chair of Northern Rock (now 100 per cent owned by us) is apparently earning £50,000 more every year than his ousted predecessor. The current chief executive of Lloyds TSB has allegedly described his £1 million-a-year salary as “relatively modest”.
The average non-executive board member of a bank can still expect a minimum of £60,000 a year for a few days’ work per month. No wonder our politicians have always been so keen to join them. Unfortunately, that means there’s no one keeping a neutral eye on the bankers’ natural tendency to go barking mad and cause recessions. Moore did her best, standing patiently at the electric gates of tasteless stockbroker mansions up and down the land. But not one of our disgraced bankers was ready to come out and apologise.
This programme was a valuable exercise, but what worries me is our more noisy recession outrage. By the time we have all calmed down, will anyone notice that the Government has done nothing much to stop it all happening again?
Over on ITV 1, there was hindsight aplenty, too, in Tears, Lies and Videotape – a documentary devoted to armchair psychology. By studying the footage of criminals who once made TV appeals for their missing or murdered loved ones, could we have spotted they were actually lying? Which begs the question: if we could, why didn’t we?
The usual posse of “experts” was assembled to study the body language of villains such as inept kidnapper Karen Matthews and wife murderer Gordon Wardell. A tabloid journalist kept it simple: they were all obvious liars, shedding crocodile tears and sniggering behind our backs. An American behaviourist helpfully pointed out that Matthews raised one shoulder slightly as she lied, while Wardell blinked for a few seconds too long. I wonder what they’re paying him.
My sympathies lay with the old copper who confessed that long experience had taught him not to judge by appearances. The truth is that no one would have rumbled the best of these televisual liars, especially when – as the most sensible shrink pointed out – some were drawing on feelings of real emotion inspired by their crimes. And these, of course, were the liars we know about. No one dared to mention the ones who might have got away.
Perhaps we could apply the “shoulder too high, blinking too much” test to the next lot of MPs who pop up on our screens to defend their expenses claims. On the other hand, telling when politicians are lying is easy, isn’t it? All together now: it’s when their lips move.
Helen Chappell
