“…And the voice of the dinosaur is heard in the land…”

Reading my ‘Sunday Times’ on 11th January 2009, I chanced upon this little gem;

“…Sir Sandy Crombie, chief executive of Standard Life, has warned that over-regulation of the financial sector once the current crisis is over will stifle enterprise and innovation.

He said governments had to take their share of the blame for fuelling the crisis. ‘Crises will happen’ opines the recently knighted Hibernian. ‘Crises will emerge again but you have to bear in mind this crisis was not precipitated entirely by the financial sector’, Crombie said.”

Oh, silly me, whatever was I thinking? Of course not, those wicked members of the public who had no creditworthiness, and just bamboozled those innocent bankers into lending them money they were never going to repay, they were to blame! It was all their fault, just demanding more and more money on the strength of their inflated property values to stand up their maxed-out credit card bills. Yeah, whatever!

Over-regulation stifle enterprise and innovation? Oh no, not this old chestnut again, what utter poppycock. No pal, we’re not buying this old shibboleth any more. We got told this by you greedy people for years and years, and you sold it to successive Governments, and particularly this dumb bunch inside New Labour, and they bought it. Maybe you can blame them for being gullible, but you lot started the problem, and along the way, you and your colleagues filled your boots with huge bonuses and fat pension contributions.

Yes, I know you gave up a bonus payment 3 years ago when things weren’t exactly going too well, but you have’nae exactly demonstrated too much enterprise and innovation yersel’ recently, have ye!

I am hugely grateful to Ian King of the Times on 31st December 2008 for pointing out the following assertions, like how your 2007 £5 billion failed take-over of Resolution wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of business acumen after Pearl had finished trashing you! What about some of the other glaring examples of innovation and enterprise Ian King discloses, wee man?

• October 2008, Standard Life slashed payouts on with-profits savings policies by up to 13 per cent - a far larger reduction than those announced by others.

• At up to 30 per cent, Standard Life's exit penalties are among the industry's most punitive.

• Over half of Standard Life's endowment mortgage customers face a shortfall when their policies mature.

• Standard Life has created an incentive for policyholders to remain locked into poorly performing funds by insisting that any distribution of orphan assets will be delayed until customers' policies mature.

• Standard Life's banking unit was one of those mortgage lenders that dragged its feet, contrary to the Government's wishes, in passing on November's 150-basis-point cut in Bank rate to borrowers.
However
• As Bradford & Bingley's biggest shareholder, Standard Life was a leading supporter of the £400million rights issue orchestrated by the Financial Services Authority in July, agreeing to sub-underwrite it - leaving policyholders with thumping losses when B&B was nationalised.

So, no more nonsense about regulation stifling enterprise and innovation. If we, the saving public had been getting the kind of regulation the financial sector really needs, we would all still be quids-in right now and not wondering how our pension plans got screwed. What did you say you got your knighthood for anyway, eh?