AS BANKERS in the City look forward to another round of eye-watering bonuses, and their spokes­people man the barricades against the onslaught of public opinion, The New MBAs (Radio 4, Monday of last week) revealed that the new genera­tion of business graduates are being taught lessons in ethics in the class­room rather than simply in the cor­rectional facility of public opinion.

Taking the opportunity for a free plug for his institution, Richard Gillingwater, Dean of the Cass Business School, expounded on the new sense of responsibility that his college impresses on students. We ear­wigged some of the classes in his new Ethics, Sustainability, and En­gage­ment programme, where case studies involving corrupt Colombian banana-producers and exploding space-shuttles are pored over at length. How all this made an impact on social responsibility was not clear, but it is to be hoped that the graduates all emerged a little sadder and wiser.

Of course, Cass Business School is not the first to teach business ethics as part of its MBA course. We heard about a laudable scheme at Man­chester, where students go on place­ments with voluntary organ­isa­tions and learn how to maximise the potential of people who work with­out the incentive of money to motiv­ate them. We also heard about the University of Nottingham, which has a programme of corpor­ate and social responsibility.

But, as Gillingwater admitted, the banking sector shows no signs of having reflected on the lessons of the banking collapse. Also, for all the efforts of the presenter Mark Whitaker to get under the skin of the MBA culture, this programme lacked any sig­nificant insights. How relevant did the students find all this touchy-feely role-playing? Was it the cause of ethical business practice that got them out of bed in the morning, or was it a case of en­during a tedious course requirement before the more exciting seminars on looting, gamb­ling, and laughing all the way to the bank?

The Things We Forgot to Re­member (Radio 4, Monday of last week) sounds as if it ought to be the sort of Radio 4 documentary that has to be endured rather than en­joyed, but Michael Portillo’s essays in revisionist history are not only commendable but also make for entertaining listening.

The series opened with a look at the Norman Conquest, and in par­ticular Harold and Edward the Confessor. Portillo might be forcing a point in arguing that the common view of these two is of noble and downtrodden heroes — one would hope that history books had been updated since the late-19th century — but it did provide the oppor­tunity for some stirring extracts from Tennyson, and from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s rightfully neglected Harold, the Last of the Saxons.

Perhaps most surprising is that anyone can still regard Harold as anything but a bullying opportunist; but there is at least the novelist Helen Hollick, who sounded full of indignation as she described how Harold, the rightful King of Eng­land, was brutally torn to pieces on the battlefield of Hastings.

As Portillo suggested, it was neither Harold nor William that was the true successor to Edward, but a boy from Hungary, Edgar Aetheling. But let’s not allow that to get in the way of a ripping yarn.