Britain's bank bosses should be jailed if their decisions lead to disaster and expensive bail-outs, the Westminster Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards has ruled.
Fair enough. But in what other walks of life should culprits face trial for reckless misconduct? Who else should be taken by tumbril from a palais de justice to a place of punishment? We will get the football ones out of the way first. Craig Levein, erstwhile Scotland manager, will be brought to book for his 6-4-0 line-up with not a single player up front against the Czech Republic. Then for conducting the most miserable attempt in living memory to qualify for a World Cup. Levein's punishment is to return and coach Cowdenbeath FC in perpetuity.
There will be a special unit at Barlinnie for heedless football club chairpersons. The punishment for Craig Whyte, who liquidated Rangers, will be to share a cell with Vladimir Romanov, late of Hearts. The Lithuanian may escape extradition on the grounds that being locked up with Whyte infringes his human rights. Other cases of recklessness pending:
l Any Atos doctor who rules a benefits claimant with incurable cancer, a dicky heart and one leg is fit for work.
l Nigel Farage of Ukip. Under the Prevention of Nigel Farage (Scotland) Act 2013.
l Any Members of Parliament entering Holyrood or the Commons not in possession of their own packed lunch.
l Any council leader who spends public money on a competition to redesign a city square and cancels because his preferred option did not win.
l Simon Cowell under the Suppression of Simon Cowell Act 2013.
l Presenters and producers of Scottish New Year's Eve programmes will be rounded up and sent without trial to the Ayatollah Hogmanay Secure Unit on a distant and deserted Hebridean island.
l Any participant in a stag or hen party wearing a silly hat and generic T-shirt with a slogan such as Blootered in Barcelona will be denied re-entry to the country by the UK Border Agency regardless of his or her state of inebriation.
l There will be dawn raids on the homes of all local authority directors of roads and subordinates. They will not be going to the office that day but will form work parties to repair potholes.
l To finish on a banking note, any manager of a member-owned building society who suggests demutualisation will be put in solitary confinement until disabused of the idea.
tom shields Reckless misconduct
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