PIzz delivery boy delivers a blast at the Big Five Banks ...

Luke Johnson Chairman of Channel 4, Oxford educated ex broker and the bastard who launched Pizza Express on an inoccent public, has a superb iconoclastic blast against the main joint stock banks in his weekly column for the Financial Times ..

"The banks have been in denial about their financial condition, and have misled shareholders, the markets and their customers." .. does he mean by "misled" , that they lied to us ?

"The six executive directors at Royal Bank of Scotland, for example, took home £16m in cash last year – on top of their accumulated pension entitlements of £26m. These are not entrepreneurs who risk their own capital in life – they are just bank employees." Quite so. qv lies from the Nat West three who then 'fessed up for a plea bargain ... but why didn't Nat West sue, aft all they lost the dosh .. more sticky fingers in the till ?

"In Barclays’ 2007 annual report there are more than 100 notes to the accounts. How many of the board, or indeed the senior management, have studied that dense document and understand it all? Who really knows those risks? The auditors? The risk committees? The Financial Services Authority? I have my doubts. The balance sheet shows that at December 31 2007 it had £345bn of loans to customers – what one might consider the core business of a bank – but also £193bn of trading portfolio assets and £248bn of derivative financial instruments. What are they all? Are those items worth what the accounts say? And why does Barclays own them?" We have maintained for a long time the major Banks blance sheets should be entered for the Booker Fiction prize, none would win on style but they would be up there on fictional imagination (Barclays Market cap today is £18.7 Bn - shareholders have lost £16 Bn in the last 12 months)

Read it all NOW .... then consider changing your bank ...we don't give advice here but Lord Patel moved to Abbey / Bank Santander 2 years ago and has substantial bonds secured in September last year at rates which would seem extraordinary today.