HEADS must roll. That seems to be the usual response to any crisis these days. Calls for people to resign come thick and fast and often I find it rather irritating.

Sometimes resigning is the only way to move on from a crisis, especially if someone has done something wrong.

It can be equally as important if someone has not done anything wrong, if it’s the best way to clear their name.

The trouble is there is then this huge, grey area inbetween.

Always tricky.

The Barclays debacle has been a sorry example of when resignations go horribly wrong.

As soon as the Libor rate scandal broke, suddenly the name Bob Diamond – the then chief executive of Barclays – was everywhere.

Whether it was all his fault or not, his name was inexplicably linked with the affair.

The crisis rumbled on and we were told he would take his medicine by turning down a generous bonus this year.

The crisis picked up steam and we heard one of his colleagues was to resign.

The pressure carried on growing until Mr Diamond did what some might have said was inevitable and fell on his sword.

We will probably never know whether he truly is to blame unless exactly who did what and when is fully revealed.

But it was interesting that both Nick Clegg and George Osborne used the same words to welcome the announcement.

It was, they said, “the right decision”.

To me, that seems a stretch.

This whole process has taken something like a week, maybe more?

Just how long can anyone survive a crisis before there is no alternative?

It seems to me that if Mr Diamond and his colleagues were taking responsibility they would have resigned straight away.

Instead it’s obvious they were effectively given no choice but to go because the bad publicity would not go away.

That sounds less about making the right decision and more about making the only decision left open to you in my book.

Their resignations might take the sting out of the situation for some but, in reality, it resolves nothing.

I’m not concerned about whether it comes in the form of a big, expensive inquiry or not but I’d rather see evidence that someone, somewhere has looked at what’s happened and why.

Instead of obsessing over just finding someone to take the rap.