Does Britain despise the idea of making money?

The political class, led by a Conservative Prime Minister, has shown an unhealthy enthusiasm for playing to the mob in the Fred Goodwin affair.

Something odd happened in the House of Commons yesterday during Prime Minister’s Questions: no one mentioned Fred Goodwin. Ed Miliband did not crow about taking the former banker’s scalp; David Cameron did not welcome the decision of the Honours Forfeiture Committee to strip him of his knighthood; not a single MP had anything to say in Parliament about the subject that had dominated that day’s newspapers and television news bulletins. It was as if they had all connived in something quite untoward, and were now too embarrassed to talk about it.

This is hardly surprising. In the cold light of day, the ceremonial humbling of Mr Goodwin looks even less edifying than it did the night before. Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor, called the affair “tawdry”, an accurate summation. The timing coming immediately after Stephen Hester, the current boss of RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) , was forced to forgo his bonus has had the effect of making Britain appear a hostile destination for financiers and top executives. The rest of the world must be looking on in bewilderment what, in his weekly missive home, will an ambassador to the Court of St James’s be writing about the climate for doing business in the UK?

In a globalised world, we cannot afford to look like a country that does not welcome entrepreneurs or financiers, even if Mr Goodwin hardly qualifies as a success in this field. The competition for business is tough: we learned yesterday that a £10 billion order for fighter planes for the Indian air force appears to be bound for France, despite a British bid. At home, the Government has yet to get a strategic grip on public spending: a report today from the National Audit Office says that ministers risk taking too much out of the front line, because Whitehall is not thinking about how to do things differently, only about how much it spends. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that a bit of banker-bashing is a convenient displacement activity for taking much harder, but necessary, decisions on the economy.

The political class, led by a Conservative Prime Minister, has this week shown an unhealthy enthusiasm for playing to the mob. But in doing so, it risks giving the impression that it derides the whole concept of making money something that was an unfortunate national characteristic in days gone by. Without a vibrant financial and business sector, or an international reputation as a business-friendly environment, Britain’s already difficult path back to economic growth will be all the harder. Mr Miliband has made it quite clear that he is comfortable in the anti-business camp. For the good of the country, Mr Cameron needs to be clear that he has no intention of joining him there.