But the big question is did he resign, or did he get a gentle nudge from someone connected with the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street – the Bank of England?
The fact that Barclays, along with many of the major investment banks, fiddled the LIBOR rate was bad enough for the man in the street to hear about it (even if they still don’t understand the significance).
But it got a whole lot worse over the weekend, when it was claimed Barclays’ traders had had a discrete nudge and wink from someone at the Bank of England that it would be OK to do so.
We haven’t heard whether this is true or not, but it is great entertainment as we all wait for play to resume at Wimbledon, and it is a pleasant diversion from the political equivalent of the Eurovision song contest – otherwise known as the eurozone debt crisis.
It would be too much to hope that Diamond goes before the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday afternoon and ‘names and shames’ those at the Bank of England. If it is true, is it a piece of information the public really needs to know – consumer confidence is low at the moment, and one more revelation of this magnitude won’t help the cause.
And it could be argued in times of war – and in 2008/2009 it was financial Armageddon – many things can be justified. After all no-one died because the LIBOR market was rigged, so does it matter?
One thing is for sure. At the beginning of the week when Barclays chairman Marcus Agius did the honourable thing we were told Diamond was still the man for the job because it was hard to find people of his quality to run a bank like Barclays.
How come he has gone from a diamond geezer to a fake gem so quickly? Probably since the Bank of England got dragged into this and the name of deputy governor Paul Tucker has had some mud thrown at it.
Tucker is many people’s favourite to be new governor of the Bank while Agius was an outside bet. Being linked with the job is becoming a curse.
At the end of it all, Barclays is one of the world’s top 20 most profitable businesses which surely matters more for the shareholders, employees and the government than individuals.
But if the UK government wants to kick-start growth again in the economy it needs to rebuild confidence, credibility and most all trust in the City of London, and if that means there are casualties, then that is the price of war. Even if the odd casualty is in the Bank of England.
Mr Diamond will find himself joining the list of disgraced bankers who come and go, like RBS’s Fred Goodwin, but the rest of us need to make a modest and respectable living out of the industry, so I for one won’t miss him!
