Lord Myners: poacher turned gamekeeper

Paul Myners, the City poacher turned gamekeeper drafted into the government last autumn, is a man of many talents.

The City poacher turned gamekeeper, drafted into the government last autumn as "the minister for Major Banking Disasters", is a man of many talents. One of them, says the Daily Mail, is making enemies. Sir Philip Green, the retail billionaire, once remarked he'd like to give Myners "a proper kick in the head" a sentiment no doubt warmly shared by the former RBS chief, Sir Fred Goodwin. After presiding over the worst banking disaster in British history, Fred the Shred was already in disgrace. But after the leaked row with Myners over his pension arrangements (Myners asked him to give some of the money back; Sir Fred refused, saying he'd been aware of the deal, part of his package for leaving the bank), Sir Fred has endured dreadful press. But "Pensiongate" has also backfired on both the government and Myners (see below). Last week, Gordon Brown promised "every legal means at our disposal" to wrest back Goodwin's £16.6m pension pot. But "if there was ever any chance of Goodwin giving up some of his pension benefits that time has long gone". He has every incentive to keep it. "He is damned if he surrenders and damned if he doesn't."

When Lord Myners of Truro, 60, joined Gordon Brown's cabinet, he was seen as the perfect New Labour minister: a Renaissance Man who combined an apparently easy gift for becoming filthy rich with a social conscience. Myners, it is said, has never forgotten his roots. "Indeed, his beginnings were as humble as can be imagined," says The Independent. After being given away by his mother at birth, he spent his first three years in a children's home, before being adopted by a Truro butcher. A clever boy, he won a scholarship to the area's best independent school and gained a first-class degree at London University. His early career, however, was characterised by false starts. Realising he was no teacher, "he charmed his way, over a lunch" into a job as a financial journalist on The Daily Telegraph, before jumping ship to NM Rothschild in 1974, rising swiftly to become the bank's key manager in Hong Kong and a board member to boot.

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