Forget Fred Goodwin - the worst RBS offenders got away scot-free

Sir Fred Goodwin - ex-head of RBS - was the villain of the FSA's report into the bank's recent troubled past. But the worst offenders got away without so much as a ticking off, says Matthew Lynn.

The phrase scot-free' doesn't, of course, have anything to do with Scottish people. Its origins are not entirely clear, even to the great and precise minds in charge of Wikipedia. One explanation is that it comes from the old English word sceot', meaning tax: so someone who got off scot-free was lucky enough to avoid the medieval version of the Inland Revenue. Another explanation is that it derives from the career of Dred Scott, a 19th-century American slave who campaigned for his freedom all the way up to the Supreme Court before eventually being liberated by his owners.

From this week, however, we can add a new explanation. Scot-free derives from the ancient custom of running a big Scottish bank, practically bankrupting the country with reckless lending, and then walking away as if nothing had happened.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.