Bankers are cunning, nasty little rats

Find out why bankers are rats, and how they're about to turn nasty.

I've been thinking a lot about rats lately. Not the rats infesting the financial services industry, but the ones infesting my house.

A year or two back, shortly after the run on Northern Rock, we noticed a strange smell in our living room.

The pong faded and we breathed a sigh of relief, but it returned about the time Lehman Brothers collapsed, stronger than before. We could smell a rat. A dead one.

When we jemmied up the floorboards I understand how former Lloyds TSB boss Sir Victor Blank must have felt the first time he took a proper look at the HBOS balance sheet. The foul odours engulfed us like a toxic sub-prime mortgage book.

Year of the Rat

We raided our funds to put in a new floor, but like the financial regulators, never got to the root of the problem. Like a multi-million pound banker's bonus, our rats are back and creating the same foul smell as before.

I've learned a lot about rats in recent weeks and everything I've read only confirms my theory that bankers aren't fat cats, they're rats.

Why rats are like bankers

Rats are adaptive little creatures that can squeeze through the tiniest of holes. Like a banker sneaking through a loophole in a piece of tax legislation, this makes them very hard to control.

Rats, like bankers, are cautious creatures, having learned through bitter experience that most people don't like them. They soon discover which traps to avoid.

Rats and bankers will quietly feed off you for years, but if you trap them in a corner, they turn nasty and bite.

Rats are considered special beings in some cultures, as are bankers, which are openly worshipped in the City of London and Wall Street.

Rats use their tails to control their body temperature because they cannot sweat. Just like bankers. Probably.

And why they're not

Of course there are differences as well. Rats did not cause the bubonic plague, which was caused by infected fleas that jumped off dead rats onto humans. Bankers say they didn't cause the credit crunch, claiming it was caused by anybody but themselves. They're lying.

Also rats can be house trained.

Rattus bankingsecticus

The financial services industry attracts the biggest rats because it offers the tastiest food scraps. It has been infested with rodents in some shape or other for the last decade.

Many assumed the shape of tied financial advisers, and mis-sold pensions, mortgage endowments, precipice bonds, split capital investment trusts and payment protection insurance. Another strain ate Equitable Life.

But in recent years they have made their home in the banking sector, causing a plague of poisonous small print on overdraft charges, credit cards, savings accounts and mortgages.

After every financial services scandal people say lessons have been learned and defences bolstered, but every time bankers nibble their way through the new set of regulatory obstacles. They're already chewing their way around Chancellor Darling's new banker's bonus tax. It's in their nature. Vermin.

To catch a rat

Right now, I'm stuffing chicken wire into every hole in my outer walls and filling my cellar with rat traps.

The traps will stay there for the long-term and I will keep freshening the bait (peanut butter) every month, because they will scurry back at the first opportunity.

And that's how you should behave when dealing with banks. They are constantly looking for new ways to nibble money out of your bank account using deadly plastic, dodgy bank charges, credit card tricks, current account rip-offs, or simply by trampling over your credit rating. And, at the moment, they're being backed into a corner, which means they're probably about to turn nasty.

So be on your guard and stay alert for new boltholes and loopholes, because they will try to wriggle through them to get at you.

This is an evolutionary struggle between you and them. The best thing you can do is to know your enemy. Once you recognise and understand how the banks behave, you can counter them.

The good news is, unlike rats, you can get rid of your banker for good. Find out how here.

Mus Maximus

Doubtless one or two rat lovers will write in to claim the creatures are playful, intelligent, gentle and make great pets (if you're that keen, you can have mine).

But I don't expect anyone to write in defending bankers...