So the Mob has got its way and is currently parading Stephen Hester’s head around the City on the end of a pikestaff. Metaphorically speaking. (To a banker his bonus is as vital as his head.) What this whole disturbing episode shows, yet again, is the disaster that often comes to pass when business and politics meet.  Hester is the one banker who has been beheaded because he was the one individual that government – urged on by the mob – could most easily humiliate and cut down to size. He is, after all, a government employee of sorts.

Except, of course, a civil servant he isn’t. You simply cannot run a bank – especially one which has a substantial investment bank included – as a public sector enterprise. RBS isn’t the NHS or English Heritage and never can be. It’s a nonsense.  The worse things get at RBS and the more politicians become involved in its operation the more likely it is we will never get our money back.  One thing is for sure – we may not have much confidence in the ability of politicians to run the country but their ability to run a bank is even more questionable.

A couple of other thoughts: how motivated would you feel today as you arrived at your desk if you were Stephen Hester? Would you be 100% fired up to give your all on behalf of the organisation and therefore the UK tax payer? How he must now feel about his decision to ‘help out’ by joining a bankrupt bank. I can just imagine the conversation with Gordon Brown’s people: ‘Great sense of duty… blah blah blah…  definite seat in the House of Lords… blah blah. Do the right thing.’ Well Hester has paid the penalty for being seduced. Who could blame him if he walks out? And the quality of the list of individuals to replace him will be pretty poor.

What this has done is ram home – if it wasn’t already glaringly obvious – that the majority of the UK population now loathes bankers with a passion and will do whatever it can to make their lives hard and indeed even bring them down. Well, fine.  Let’s chase them all out of town and see where that gets us. This morning, RBS shares were down to 27p, almost half the price the taxpayer paid for them in 2009 – a loss of £300m.  Public anger about high pay may be understandable but zeroing in on Hester will ultimately solve nothing.