FTSE 100
Dow Jones
Nasdaq
CAC40
Dax

Monday 9 February 2009

Do as I say not as I do?

What chance is there that the UKFI, the group responsible for managing the banks funded by the tax payer, will insist that government funded banks will pay no bonuses? It appears that their employees ... will be on a bonus scheme. So, practically none.

Bankers are hardly likely to take much heed of what the politicians say. Listeners to the Today Programme this morning will have heard Yvette Cooper saying that bankers should refuse their bonuses, even if they had a contractual entitlement to them. Oh how we laughed when John Humphreys questioned Ms Cooper about the fact that she and her husband Ed Balls both claimed their maximum entitlement in respect of their their home in London as a second home, even though it appears that this is their main residence and their second, rarely used home is in Yorkshire near their constituencies.

Mr Humphreys also questioned her about Jacqui Smith's claim that her main residence was as a lodger in her sister's small terraced house in South London, where she apparently spends only 3 nights a week and has no legal interest in the property, and that her second home is a large house in the Midlands which she owns jointly with her husband, where he lives with their children and where the children go to school. Mrs Balls defended herself by saying they were all only claiming what they were entitled to claim.

And so of course would the bankers.

No comments: