Operation Glencoe

Abstract

A shadow hung over London the week of 1 April, 2009. According to Class War’s web site it was the shadow of the guillotine dripping with the blood of Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Fred ‘the Shred’ Goodwin was the newly ‘retired’ chairman of the ‘bankrupt’ Royal Bank of Scotland and the unacceptable face of greedy banking, not quite a man of straw, for he was sufficiently implicated in the near collapse of world banking to deserve the invective, having accepted a hugely inflated cash bonus and pension whilst sinking his banking institution through speculation in poor investments. Public outrage demanded natural justice and saw none in the face of corporate arrogance and disdain. As Goodwin contemplated taking himself to South Africa and away from the public gaze, a group calling themselves ‘Bank Bosses are Criminals’ smashed the windows of his Edinburgh home and vandalized his car in attacks reminiscent of an eighteenth-century mob. The attackers even released a statement in which they put the point many were feeling, ‘we are angry’ they said, ‘that rich people, like [Goodwin] are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed’.¹