Throwing Adam Smith out with the dishwater

Committed free marketeer Bob Diamond, the CEO of Barclays Capital who pulls down a rather sweet £23m per annum in pay, bonuses and share awards believed wholeheartedly that the government needs to intervene in the current credit "crisis" brought on by poor decisions made by commercial banks and other lenders but insists that it wouldn't be a bail out. According to Mr. Diamond, a countryman of mine by the way:

"The world's credit market bubble has burst so we have very difficult trading conditions...We didn't do a great job managing the headlines this week."

Mr. Diamond's bank is rumoured to have a black hole on its balance sheet in the region of nine figures but he, along with other bank officials deny this.