Bob Diamond, ex CEO of Barclays, feared New Labour aimed to nationalise that bank!

There was much mealy mouthed testimony and pointless hand-wringing and platitudes over wrongdoing in the Barclays' trading room,  by Bob Diamond, before the Treasury Select Committee in the House of Commons this afternoon!

The main point of substance that came over to me was the fear at senior levels within the bank, that New Labour's dreadful set of ministers at HM Treasury and within Downing Street, were aiming for yet more bank nationalisations thus adding substance to the complaints raised by Elizabeth Beckett in her letter to the Master of the Rolls at that time, linked here, of which the following is the pertinent section 12:

I write now, in view of the danger, after the attempt of Michael Foot to nationalise banks, now being effected under the same intention, but with the camouflage of a world economic crisis, to ask your Lordship to declare the automatic assent void and illegal under the constitutional statute including that of 1795 made perpetual in 1807, 1817 and 1848 and only repealed under the automatic assent, Rogers and Walters claim the assent by convention had become automatic since Queen Anne was the last monarch to send a Bill back. In fact, William III, George III, William IV, Queen Victoria and, as Asquith well knew, Edward VII (because the Bill had been handed to him), had all returned Bills.