[Dennis Stevenson at the Treasury Select Committee yesterday]
We are profoundly and, I think I would say, unreservedly sorry at the turn of events. [Followed by a load of waffle about other people's suffering.]
Anyone educated at Cambridge, even King’s, knows exactly what this means. It means what it says. If you listen to the video, he is visibly choosing his words with great care.
“I think I would say”. I give him the benefit of the doubt on that. In print it looks like “maybe”, but if you listen to it, it could be a poncey way of trying to add weight to “unreservedly”.
But “at the turn of events” is crystal clear. It means he is not sorry at all, in the sense of contrite. On the contrary, he simply wishes fate had not dealt him and others such cruel blows. Rephrasing and expanding slightly:
I wish I was not facing a hostile Committee. I wish fate dealt had not dealt me and others such cruel blows. But I am absolutely confident that I behaved with total propriety, and I think I would say, considerable skill in the face of an impossible situation.
Nearly 25 years ago as an executive in a major company I sat in front of a furious member of the triumvirate that ran the company. Let us call him Harold. I did not report to Harold but to the chairman. I had circulated a memo to several directors and others which Harold did not like. He told my secretary to run round and retrieve it from everyone’s inbox (email had not yet taken off back then). I recirculated it by handing it personally to its intended recipients and disappeared to a meeting out of London. All hell broke loose. Two days later I had come to apologize. I said
I am sorry that I have upset you.
I started to say a few other things too, but Harold had heard all he needed to. He got up from his desk lifted me off my feet and physically threw me out of his office. I have never heard a door slammed so hard. All the other directors in the corridor put their heads out to see what was going on. Interestingly, I was extremely calm. For some odd reason that is always my physiological response to physical danger. I was not so calm later.
On the substantive issue, I was correct, as later events proved, although my people/political skills clearly left something to be desired. More important, I was guilty of a sham apology, and Harold knew it. He was a man of considerable integrity. I always liked him.
Someone needs to throw Dennis Stevenson out of his office. Well, I speak metaphorically (about the office, that is). He has already left HBOS and his surviving offices seem to be in the Lords and academia. In fact, it needs some careful thought. Lines from Gilbert & Sullivan are ringing through my head about “the punishment fit the crime”, but I cannot quite place them at the moment.
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