Closing the stable door after Sir Fred has bolted

Poor little Darling on Today this morning said something must be done about Sir Fred Goodwin's £650,000 pension. Later he got a bit of stick in the Commons over the arrangement for the 50-year-old former RBS chief.

How is the Govt going to do anything about it? This was an arrangement approved by a renumeration committee stuffed with non-exec directors (all themselves very much enjoying their fees) and perfectly lawful. It may smell a bit, look bad and be politically very awkward but, short of expressing faux indignation in order to deflect the blame for lax oversight, there is absolutely nothing that can be done.

Sir Fred doesn't strike Sir Compton as the sort of chap to buckle under a torrent of odium from failed governors of the country and agree to turn in his pension pot. Perhaps they'll try passing a law to clamp down on one individual. A good wheeze, but let's see it stick at judicial review, the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, the European Court. Not a chance.

So, short of blackmailing Sir Fred - pictures in the News of the World of him wiping his pimply backside with the taxpayers' £50 notes (and English taxpayers at that!) - it would have been better not to have drawn attention to the issue.

This ought really to be filed along with "Stipping peers of their titles if they go to prison", that extremely partial initiative announced a couple of weeks ago in relation to Lords Archer and Black. No mention of it this week in relation to the car-killer Lord Ahmed. And in a gold Jaguar, for God's sake! How very vulgar.