Mannerisms

Where there is arrogance, hubris and bloated profits the Scottish Presbyterian rectitude of our granite Prime Minister is ideally suited to prick the bubble of inflated insolence.

We saw it first with the wireless telecommunications operators. These guys were classic victims of hubris. Their businesses grew like weeds, and they had never experienced any significant set-back until the time came for the auction of 3G licenses.

Whether Gordon recognised that the hubristic, macho, self-confidence of the operators was their Achilles Heel, is not known. But it looked as if he did, because he arranged an auction process which ruthlessly exploited it.

Devising, with the help of academic games theorists, a bidding system designed with fiendish cleverness to keep the bidders at the auction way past the point at which the price for licenses had out-stripped all commercial justification, Gordon as Nemesis extracted £22.7 billion from the suckers.

The suckers were never quite the same again. Now they are reduced to sharing networks.

The next time Gordon emerged in his garb of Nemesis was to bring retribution to another bunch of hubristic, arrogant, insolent guys was his sudden, and brilliant ban on short-trading in financial institutions which stuffed the Hedgies.

The Hedgies, or hedge fund operators, said they merely acted to spot weaknesses in share prices and then alert people to them. In reality they acted in concert as ravening packs to destroy institutions.

The scale of their amorality could be seen as they piled into short-selling UK banks when it was clear the UK banking system was on the verge of meltdown. Give us the money even if it bankrupts the country was their attitude.

My how the Hedgies whined when the granite Nemesis banned their favourite tool. Many Hedgies have seen huge amounts of money withdrawn from their hedge funds by investors. Presbyterian rectitude had extracted its dues once again.

Undoubtedly Gordon's finest hour was when he nationalised the banks. It was gratifying to read in the American newspapers that the Brits had shown the way on how to deal with the bankers. While the US authorities, led by Hank Paulson, dithered, then followed Gordon in recapitalising, and nationalising a bunch of their own banks.

Instead of using the $700 million bailout voted by Congress to take the bad debts off the books off the banks, the money was used to take over the banks.

That was a miles more sensible approach in view of the bankers' lying about the extent of their exposure, and their stubborn reluctance to use government-provided funds to get the banking system working properly again.

The UK's Calvinistic Nemesis had saved not only the UK financial system, but the US system as well, and the US newspapers were freely acknowledging the fact.

So woe betide any puffed-up preening peacocks if there are any still around. When the Grim Granite Gaelic Nemesis hoves into view - tremble.