Artful PM dodges ban on bankers’ bonuses

Moves to boost banker bonuses makes the blood boil.

Never mind the fuss about Channel Four’s Benefits Street. What about Parasite Street where top bankers demand million pound bonuses on top of million pound salaries despite outrage from the public, some politicians and lawmakers in the European Union?

Apparently, RBS Chief Executive Ross McEwan is planning to award big bonuses to his top staff this year to make sure the talent stays. What? That’ll be the talent that brought us the banking crash and five long years of recession?

Why on earth should we keep them happy especially when neighbours such as Germany and Norway can operate without crazy bonuses, banking collapses or private greed dictating the shape of national life?

How can this naked, barefaced scramble for more taxpayers’ cash be happening yet again? Under new EU rules it should be impossible.

They’ve decreed that bonuses should be no larger than basic salaries. That still allows whopping perks. But a loophole means bonuses can be twice as large as salaries if banks win shareholder approval.

Simple. RBS is 81% owned by us, the taxpayer, so the Government will just say no, won’t they? In 2009, George Osborne said: “It is totally unacceptable for bank bonuses to be paid on the back of taxpayer guarantees. It must stop.”

So this is George’s big chance to finally show that he cares and is a Chancellor who stands by his words. Isn’t it? It seems David Cameron has other plans.

Last week Artful Dave dodged a bonus-blocking question from Red Ed Miliband. Yes, said Dave, the Government will keep a £2,000 cap on cash bonuses. Yes, the Government will make sure the RBS overall pay bill doesn’t rise (cuts mean far fewer staff so that’s almost impossible anyway). But no, the Government won’t cap bonuses given out in shares. So the gravy train can roll on.

The Treasury say RBS hasn’t asked permission to pay higher bonuses yet but it won’t back the EU’s bonus cap if they do.

So the scene is set for top bankers to run roughshod over EU rules, basic fairness, the will of the people and British democracy this autumn when they grab what they can at the RBS AGM and get away with it. Again. What an embarrassment.

Here we are again, leaving the much reviled EU to try and cap greed amongst the rich pals of our “couldn’t care less” UK Government while it plans a referendum on EU membership to stop foreign interference. You couldn’t make it up.

And they call Westminster the Mother of Parliaments? The Mother of Broken Promises, more like.

Not only did David Cameron refuse to cap bankers’ bonuses the Tories also voted down plans for a bank bonus tax to fund job guarantees for unemployed young people from the ill-gotten gains. We’re all in this together? Don’t make me laugh.

Still, it hardly matters if Scots are furious. We don’t vote Tory so we don’t represent lost votes in the next election. But why are Middle Englanders not up in arms? The head of the Prudential Regulation Authority says a bonus cap will just increase basic pay.

In other words, top bankers will play the system to double their income, whatever rules they have to circumvent. It’s outrageous that educated men lend a veneer of respectability to naked greed by gravely repeating such shallow justifications on TV.

This has to stop. Otherwise why have governments? Why should the majority abide by laws? And why should scunnered Scots vote to stay in a UK run by these banker’s chums for the foreseeable future? Answers, Dave?