Can someone explain why Royal Bank of Scotland, bailed out by the tax-payer, is held accountable for shareholders losing their money after being duped by Fred Goodwin and co?

If RBS had not been bailed out, it would have failed and shareholders would have lost out.  Being bailed out by the tax-payer, it is essentially a different bank.  Why are tax-payers paying for investors being duped? paying once to rescue the bank and second to rescue those to whom they are not responsible?

The logic is similar to the SNP’s blaming Westminster for Scotland’s ills.  We remember Alex Salmond supporting Fred Goodwin in his disastrous and uncosted take-over of Dutch bank ABN-Amro after Barclays bank dropped out of the takeover battle.

The RBS bail out was not the only time that England helped out Scotland.  The Darien scheme was another financial disaster which contributed to the Act of Union so decried by the SNP.  But they had only their fellow Scotsmen to blame for it, just as RBS shareholders have Fred Goodwin and co to blame, not the tax-payer, to whom they should be thankful that they did not lose absolutely everything, although near enough.

Nor do Scottish schools teach our young people about England helping out Scotland at a critical stage in the Scottish Reformation, which led on to Scotland becoming the most literate nation on earth and contributing to the development of the British empire.  Scottish children are told only a selective part of our nation’s history, and although Germany has spent ten years preparing for the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s inauguration of the European Reformation on 31/10/1517, Scotland’s Reformer is unceremoniously ignored by its populace.