It lasted more than three hours. But despite speaking fluently for most of that time, Bob Diamond’s interrogation by MPs on Wednesday left unanswered many of the questions surrounding Barclays, the bank from which he resigned as chief executive on Tuesday.
Mr Diamond avoided some of the toughest questions and denied knowledge of key issues, as he was grilled by the 13-member Commons Treasury committee on the Libor price-rigging scandal and other matters related to his departure.
At times he was apologetic, at others inconsistent.
Only minutes into the questioning, when Andrew Tyrie, the committee’s chairman, had posed his first query on why Mr Diamond had decided to resign , he stonewalled suggestions that it was prompted by calls from regulators to chairman Marcus Agius. Were there phone calls, he was asked? “I don’t know,” he said. “If Marcus had conversations with regulators, that is for him to tell you about.”
It emerged on Tuesday that both Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, and Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, had called Mr Agius late on Monday to make clear that Mr Diamond should go, according to several people familiar with the calls.
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