WHAT is it with bankers and politicians?
Why is their memory so much shorter than that of customers and electors? You might have thought that a sharp ability to recall recent history would be an asset in both sectors, but apparently not.
We ask for the obvious reason that while MPs once more think it's OK to be hired guns, our bankers still think it is economically and morally acceptable to receive performance bonuses which are in direct disproportion to their institution's performance, even when their catastrophic performances resulted in the taxpayer having to bail them out.
Normal people - those just getting on with the hard yards of clinging on to a job and raising a family - are bewildered by the way these characters seem to consider themselves bound by entirely different rules and values as if they are in some parallel universe. It's not as simplistic as anti-austerity campaigners contrasting benefit sanctions with wealthy tax avoiders, although the simple word "cheats" should surely apply to both.
But when you see the performance of our senior bankers over the last two days it's as hard to make a case for them as it is to defend Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind for touting their contacts as parliamentarians. The performance of senior HSBC executives in front of MPs was cringe-worthy. Everything was bad, even shameful, but no-one was actually to blame.
Fair play to New Zealander Ross McEwan (salary £2.7m) at RBS for foregoing his £1m bonus. That must have been tough. But when other executives received £421m in bonuses as the taxpayer-owned bank lost a further astounding £3.5 billion, the public are entitled to a view and it is a dim one. Losses for RBS have now reached £43 billion since 2008. Repeat, £43 billion, and we are still paying these people bonuses while the global footprint of the bank shrinks.
There is something profoundly wrong here, and the explanation in the RBS announcement about needing to pay bonuses in order to recruit and retain talented staff simply does not stack up. If the staff were that talented, surely the bank would not be in taxpayers' hands and continuing to haemorrhage our cash? A few months ago there was a tweet recording mankind's miraculous feat of landing a space probe on an asteroid but as yet failing to jail a single banker. Iceland has a better record, having actually punished some bankers and politicians.
RBS trotted out the usual explanations for the continued payment of bonuses, such as the need to retain top staff in a competitive industry, but how can that possibly be the case in the context of a further £3.5bn loss? And one bailed out by the taxpayer?
A joiner, an engineer, a teacher, dare we say it, a journalist, may face sanctions if he or she gets it wrong. It is a mystery to all why a banker or politician escapes such consequences. Bankers in loss-making businesses funded by the taxpayer simply have to learn a new way of doing business.
This view is not anti-business, as some have suggested. It is pro-business, pro-accountability, pro-practices which reconnect our banking community with those they are meant to work for.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article