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Nick Robinson
Political editor
MPs also on trial at Diamond show
Bob Diamond was questioned for about two and a half hours
It was meant to be Bob Diamond in the dock but the MPs cross-examining him were also on trial.
The prime minister insists that a committee like today's and chaired by the same man will do a better job than a public inquiry chaired by a judge.
What today showed is that 14 individuals, with different interests, different levels of expertise and different political objectives cannot sustain a single line of inquiry.
The public queued for seats at the hearing but but many left after about half an hour when it became clear that this would not be much of a show.
David Cameron insists what matters is not the theatre, though, but a swift inquiry which can recommend practical changes in the law to be implemented within months.
Ed Miliband replies that a judicial inquiry could deliver that and go on to deliver something else - produce a sort of public reckoning with those who run the banks. At stake is something much bigger than the style of the inquiry. It is a fight over political reputations.
Labour say the Tories are the bankers' party. They reply that Labour had 13 years in government to regulate the banks and failed. The rest of us are simply spectators.
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Comment number 195.
jim6th July 2012 - 0:10
all three parties do not want a judge, they all are closley tied in with the banks, we all know this, didnt camron look nervous at the leverson question,
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Comment number 194.
PaulRM5th July 2012 - 22:58
Our political system is inexorably slipping into ignominy, & our democracy into irrelevance.I've come to realise whatever the colour of the rosette worn by the PM, & in spite of the scandals & duplicity revealed at the centre of govt-nay parliament-we the people are only now beggining to see the extent of the canker infecting Westminster - & still the Hon members lie, cheat & deceive.God help us.
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Comment number 193.
Ivan The Cerebral5th July 2012 - 22:09
The wrong people are now in banking, and, I fear, mostly to stay: extreme egoists, in the American model, as in many fields.
These never ask, to parallel but invert Kennedy's words, "what they might do for that project, but what it might do for them"
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Comment number 192.
All for All5th July 2012 - 21:42
John_Bull @187
Just "laughing" at Ed?
Would it were true, John
Did you watch the debate, and Bob Diamond before the TSC?
We, the public, lost to a whipped vote
If you watched the TSC you will know: grandstanding shambles
Even with John Davies' protection for whistleblowers, no volunteers
At least with Leveson-style 'the story' would have been 'on the record', available to the next generation
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Comment number 191.
sagamix5th July 2012 - 21:11
JB 183
Regulators have been poor (no debate) and your CDS example is a good one.
However, look deeper. Look beyond the technical and structural and see the bank crisis as behavioural. Ok, now what drove the behaviour of the key players in the sector? Exactly.
No, John, this was coming regardless of regulation. Likewise new regulation (if it doesn't kill the bonus culture) won't help much.
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Comments 5 of 195