Barclays in denial

There is a lovely article in the Daily Telegraph about Barclays being in denial about the size of the losses that it needs to take.

One thing that caught my eye was the following:

It has even been suggested that Barclays chose not to offload its Alliance Boots debt, when others in the banking syndicate took a 10 per cent valuation cut to get the assets off their books, because Varley and Diamond wanted to protect the minimal writedowns on leverage loans.

Well you might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Anybody looked lately at their consumer lender exposure in Japan? I couldn't possibly comment.

How about just the almost total absence of losing trading days in the investment bank. I couldn't possibly comment.

Anyone you know carried an 800 billion pound investment bank portfolio and not lost money on at least some days... I couldn't possibly comment.

How about the LBO exposures. Well apart from Boots I cannot possibly comment.