Monday 16 February 2009

It's only money - an apology

I am sorry. I realise I may have given the impression by some of the things I have written that I did not consider that our bankers were the cleverest people on earth. Now I realise I was wrong – they ARE the cleverest people on earth. Who else could grab billions of pounds from taxpayers like you and me because they’ve run their banks so incompetently they are now broke, then pocket that money in bonuses?

Lloyds, in receipt of £17 billion from us – that’s about £500 from every taxpayer in this country – wants to hand out £120 million to its staff, and whines that some are earning as little as £17,000 a year. Well, some of the taxpayers who will have to fork out for the bank’s bonuses will be earning as little as £7,000 a year, and most of them, I suspect, never get paid any bonuses themselves.

RBS, bailed out to the tune of £20 billion, has still not denied that it wants to pay out £1 billion (!!) in bonuses. Surely Labour will not be weak-kneed enough to allow this. These banks are broke. If they insist on paying bonuses, Labour should put our shareholding in them up for sale forthwith. Then let’s see how much money they’ll be able to afford to pay out. But why on earth did Labour not set conditions BEFORE handing over our money, instead of having to plead with the bankers after they had pocketed it?

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