I, like pretty well everybody, am appalled by the size of Sir Fred Goodwin's pension but it was -and is - perfectly legal, agreed by the board and Sir Fred would without any doubt win any court case that the Government tried to take against him.
Now I gather that Harriet Harman is proposing to introduce an Act of Parliament, that would retrospectively change the law concerning the pension. This is incredibly dangerous. Retrospective legislation should be ONLY used in the rarest of cases - the last case I can think of was the War Crimes act, and even then I had my doubts - and there is no question that that issue is infinitely more serious than embarrassing the Government.
Where could this end? Retrospective leglislation to repeal the Highland Clearances? Labour doesn't like something that happened in the past? hey ... just make retrospective legislation ...
Harman - as her interview to the BBC makes abundantly clear - is playing a cynical, populist, vote grabbing card which has nothing to do with Fred Goodwin's pension but absolutely everything to so with saving Labour's arse.
The consequences of any such legislation are so enormous that they don't bear thinking about.
Mad and dangerous ....
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