Fred the Shred & Media Relations
News is just in that Former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin has offered to reduce his pension by £200,000 a year.
As a tax payer and a citizen I applaud Fred’s decision to return his ill-gotten gains, and can only hope that other bankers follow suit and redistribute the wealth they have appropriated at the expense of our economic wellbeing. But from a PR point of view I am flummoxed.
Fred’s decision is completely out of sync with the Media Agenda, which as we know has an attention span as long as a goldfish and can only handle one story at a time. The bankers’ show trials are long over, and the current villains of the piece are politicians, the latest of whom resigned last night. Fred’s announcement is merely drawing attention to himself, the sort of tactic you’d expect from a publicity crazed C-lister like Jordan, but not a former figure of public hate.
What’s even more surprising is Fred’s late arrival to the PR party. This is the man that gave us all the metaphorical V sign when asked by Ministers and media commentariat to repay some of his golden handshake or reduce his pension out of a sense of morality or decency. An unabashed Goodwin was happy to keep his pay-off, even if it meant a terrible media image, and attacks on his property. Everybody hated him and he didn’t care. One imagines his vast wealth provided some comfort.
So what’s happening now? Has Fred had a moral awakening and realised that it is unfair for him, one of the architects of RBS’ flawed business model to walk away a wealthy man whilst thousands of his employees join the ranks of the unemployed? Or is he just really bad at media relations? I’m going with the cynical but realistic third option, that Goodwin is doing this to pre-empt something worse spilling onto the media agenda. But what?