When the sacrifice of a lamb is not enough! - Marcus Who?

When it was announced that Marcus Agius would resign as Chairman of Barclays the general response was "Marcus who?" And "Why?"

The public face of Barclays was undoubtedly Bob Diamond, the CEO, and he had repeatedly refused to stand down.

What a difference 24 hours makes! Oh, how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in some meeting rooms yesterday. This morning an "angry" Diamond announced his resignation, albeit with a reported £20 million pay off - I just hope we don't then hear he has only paid 1% tax on that.

Mr Diamond is seen by many as the architect and leader of a culture of arrogance and was head of the investment bank at the time interest rates were being "fixed". By contrast Mr Agius was not there in 2006, so one can hardly describe the debacle as something that happened on his "watch".

It feels as if Mr Agius was offered up as the sacrificial lamb hoping that it would satisfy the baying hordes. It was argued that major stakeholders had been thinking for some time about getting a stronger Chairman to face up to the force that is Mr Diamond - 'nuff said, I think.

I am not sure what happened, if it was viewed that people saw through this subterfuge or indeed if Mr Diamond's involvement is now seen to be deeper, but it does feel that the CEO's resignation is a more appropriate response. After all, he along with many other senior bankers have long argued that their huge rewards were justified by the complexity and risk they were responsible for, so when their performance is clearly below what is expected then they should go. This would be true of more junior employees, so why not for them.

Now Mr Agius, gets the chance for a more proper exit, after he has provided interim leadership to the Barclays' Executive Committee while they search for a new CEO.

I do wonder which other "masters of the universe" will have to fall on gilded swords before we are through this crisis? I suspect many will be checking just how soft a landing their pay-off terms will provide. Mr Diamond may be "angry", but this is about taking responsibility and whether he jumped or was pushed (hard) as I suspect, this is no less than the revelations about the behaviour of Barclays under his leadership seem to deserve.

Roll on Wednesday's revelations.