Comment: Cable’s call to nationalise is looking way off beam

Stephen Hester was being a little disingenuous today when he claimed it was not his job “to focus on who owns our company.”

When he took on the job of chief executive of Britain’s most bailed-out bank three years ago, he was tasked not just with making the bank safe and restoring it to profitability but also with ensuring the taxpayer got as much of the billions of pounds that were pumped into it back — preferably with interest.

Today’s results show the first two tasks are well on the way to being achieved. That makes it all the more bizarre that Business Secretary Vince Cable chose this week to suggest (again) that RBS should be fully nationalised.

Never mind the £5 billion-odd it would cost to mop up the 20% of shares the taxpayer doesn’t own, which this can Government hardly afford to splash out.

RBS is gradually turning itself into something that will one day be valuable. Indeed, it could be very valuable. The core UK retail and commercial bank is already profitable and will become more so. Now is the time for the Government to be looking at selling, not buying, RBS shares.