The troubled Royal Bank of Scotland announced today the devastating news they are to cut 9,000 jobs worldwide. 4,500 of those are in the UK. The jobs cut will be ‘backroom staff’, eg employees who cannot under any circumstances be blamed for the crisis the bank finds itself in.

The bank is trying to save £2.5 bn over the next three years, but the announced move to fire staff who many see as the backbone of RBS, and thereby making them pay for the mistakes made in boardrooms, have angered many. This comes on top of the 2,700 jobs that have already been announced are to be cut, making the total of UK jobs being cut by this bank alone a staggering 7,200.

So who is to blame? The media likes putting the blame on Fred Goodwin, but apart from being immoral and a bit of a git, he had done nothing wrong. And with his pension plan he can afford to go places where no one has heard of him and RBS. Ultimately the blame for this royal mess has to be put on the government. Much stricter regulations should have been put in place a long time ago, but as things were going so, so well, this was not done. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Now we know it was broken all along.