Fred Goodwin – The Manhunt Continues

After demanding his £700,000 annual pension be paid, Fred Goodwin has become the number one target for those who desire a flesh-and-blood manifestation of the recession to vent their frustrations at. First he got round the clock security. Then his Edinburgh house was smashed up. Then he was found in Majorca apparently unable to understand what all the fuss was about. Thanks to this fugitive status, he’s become hotter pap property than Britney, and the race is on to get a photo of him “enjoying himself” that anti-capitalist protesters can dance around as it burns. Well point your sat-navs Alp-wards, because he’s apparently staying with RBS global brand ambassador Jackie Stewart at his house in Begnins, Switzerland!

Goodwin should feel right at home, surrounded as he is by other celebs who have done well out of their home countries before fleeing to avoid giving back large sections of their wealth. It’s like a little F1 tax-dodging paddock has set up in the village, with Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost joining Stewart in choosing the Lake Geneva shore for their home, all presumably playing boules together and laughing at the saps who actually contribute to their respective European societies.

Stewart owes Goodwin, as he gets paid £1m a year by the bank for being a brand ambassador, which involves wearing RBS-emblazoned shirts to persuade impressionable aging F1 fans that investing in the bank is a good idea. Other ambassadors include Sachin Tendulkar, Andy Murray and Zara Phillips. Stewart was trumpeting Goodwin over the weekend in the Express, saying that he just made a mistake: “At the end of 2007, Sir Fred was applauded as the best banker in the world and the company made £11billion profit. Suddenly, he is the worst banker in the world. It is nonsense.” Thanks for those pearls, Jackie – do you know what “over-leveraged” means?

The anti-RBS anger is still flowing like the hate in Star Wars – the Daily Record is mad that former RBS director Mark Fisher has managed to pay off his mortgage, while the Scotsman is getting impatient that it’ll take years to potentially nab Fred for breaking financial regulations. Philip Hampton, the new chairman, has asked for an end to the “public flogging” of the bank, but it doesn’t look like the public’s bloodlust has been sated yet. To be fair, Hampton’s got a point – if this drags on and on, RBS’s name could get irrevocably mud-spattered, and harm the British financial services industry all for the sake of people wanting to chuck things at Fred. Can someone get that picture of him snorting coke off Nicole Scherzinger while Lewis looks on impotently, and satisfy the public once and for all?

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Hot Money | April 7, 2009 12:54PM |