Leading article: Arrogance and denial

The implosion of the Dunfermline Building Society is, of course, a small wave on a turbulent financial ocean. There are far bigger lenders out there in even greater trouble.

Yet the public response of Jim Faulds, Dunfermline's chairman, yesterday to the news that the lender will be sold to a rival rather than given a bailout with public money is another depressing reflection of the arrogance and denial that pervade the financial industry. Rather than recognising the manifest failings of himself and his colleagues in running this venerable business into the ground, Mr Faulds chose to harangue the Government for its failure to inject public cash to keep the business afloat. There was not even an acknowledgement of the fact that taxpayers will have to take responsibility for some of Dunfermline's bad loans as a condition of its sale.

Such attitudes of extreme self-entitlement surely need to be thoroughly stamped out if our savings are ever to be adequately secured.