Then the chairman of the large media company that owns your title offers you a job as head of finance. You take it on; you fail to spot the risks in the strategy your predecessor was running and so continue with it; the company gets run into the ground; and you’re rightly fired.

In a reasonable and sane world, should you:
a) apply for editor jobs, and be taken seriously as a candidate because you’ve a strong proven track record in editorial, and the fact that you messed up corporate finance isn’t at all relevant
b) never be allowed to work again, save perhaps as a cub reporter or a night sub?

The sane answer is a, right? So why the hell is there such a fuss about Andy Hornby, who was an extremely good manager at Asda and running HBOS’s retail division, but didn’t understand the systemic risk of reduced liquidity or the lack of controls in HBOS’s corporate banking department, being hired to run retailer Alliance Boots…? He’s a good candidate for the job.

(more generally, I don’t get the public’s general anger against bankers, politicians, etc. Yes, they messed up. You messed up. We all mess up. We’re people, it’s what we do. The bankers didn’t kill anyone, they just cost us a bit of money. It’s only money. Nobody in the UK will ever have to starve on the streets, so the money doesn’t really matter, beyond ‘it’d be nice to have a new car this year’. So stop being such pathetic childish bitter twats about it…)