Myners to turn back on City over moral concerns
CITY minister Lord Myners is so disgusted by arrogance and greed in the financial services sector that he will become a theology student rather than return to the City full-time.
The minister, who was brought into Gordon Brown’s government as part of a series of “national service” recruitments from the private sector, said there was a “troubling absence of clear moral purpose” among bankers.
In an interview, Myners said he was “increasingly…concerned with the fact that we have compromised our lives” and said he feared that his career in finance, which netted him an estimated £30m, had “neglected” the moral dimension of life.
Myners, a Methodist, said he was planning to study comparative theology and refused to rule out becoming a member of the clergy.
The City minister was widely blamed for failing to prevent Royal Bank of Scotland from awarding disgraced former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin a £703,000-a-year pension earlier this year.
Earlier this year, Myners warned that “the golden days of huge bonuses in the investment banking arms are gone” and described rewards for failure in the industry as “pretty unpalatable”.
But investment banks have defied expectations with huge profits in early 2009 and are set to return to large bonuses once more.