Bob Diamond, the CEO of Barclays, resorted to blaming other banks for misleading markets about their ability to borrow and regulators for taking no notice of the happenings.

“This isn’t just Barclays. Throughout 2007 and 2008, no institution of the 16 banks reporting three-month dollar Libor was at the higher end more consistently than Barclays. Barclays was getting questions about why it was always high and we were saying, ‘We are high because we were reporting at where we were borrowing money’”, Diamond said in a three-hour grilling by the Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee yesterday.

Bob Diamond told the treasury select committee of his disgust when he learned that traders at Barclays had manipulated interest rates in 2005. “When I read the emails from those traders I got physically ill. It is reprehensible behaviour and if you are asking me should those actions be dealt with – absolutely.”

Asked by the Conservative MP David Ruffley when he learnt of the practice of rate rigging, Diamond indicated that he only learnt about it when he was shown the FSA report a few days before its publication.

Andrew Tyrie, who could take charge of a parliamentary inquiry into Britain’s banking industry if MPs can reach agreement today, asked Diamond whether it was true that the FSA had raised questions about his initial appointment as chief executive of Barclays in the autumn of 2010. FSA officials had raised a number of concerns about the bank at a Barclays board meeting in February, which they attended.

As the pressure on Diamond was renewed yesterday, Chancellor George Osborne accused Ed Balls and other Labour former ministers of being “clearly involved” in intervening over the Libor rate.

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