Gosling's Grouse: Diamond geezer

So, Bob Diamond thinks banks need to become ‘good citizens', which raises an interesting concept for any institution to deal with, particularly one with its roots in the Quaker movement like Barclays.

How are banks supposed to become good institutions? Mr Diamond, in his recent carefully scripted BBC lecture, did not actually outline how, but no doubt Barclays will roll out a series of initiatives over the next couple of years in the hope it will make it more cuddly. Diamond was right about one thing – to a certain extent banks need to better articulate the contribution they make to the economy, but that is true of the financial services industry as a whole. So much of that is centred on the South East of England, mass hirings and firings do not quite have the same effect on the br...