16 Comments

• Alec Macph 5th Feb '11 - 6:43pm

  Excuse any impertinence, but when is there going to be summat on Lord Carlile?

  ~alec
  http://efrafandays.wordpress.com

• Geoffrey Payne 5th Feb '11 - 7:19pm

  It is vital we win this battle. David Cameron said it is not his job to “micromanage” the banks, yet we own some of them and it is taxpayers money. No one says that the government should not micromanage the benefits system. With Barclay’s bank the British government did not bail them out, but it was still government policy that rescued the banking system. What needs to be tackled is banking reform to stop these perverse incentives that was one of the causes of the problem in the first place. Labour didn’t tackle it when they were in office. No one should pretend it is easy to achieve in a Coalition with the Tories where a substantial number of their MPs previously worked in the City and have an interest in blocking reform.
  Nick Clegg has been saying the right things, but how far is he prepared to go on this issue?

• Red Rag 5th Feb '11 - 7:29pm

  I’m not being funny, but when has Cameron and Co took any notice at what your party or it’s members say or do?

• Tony Greaves 5th Feb '11 - 9:41pm

  Oh quite a lot, believe me!

  Tony Greaves

• Henry 5th Feb '11 - 9:57pm

  @Red Rag – obviously they do, it is a coalition and there are clearly identifiable gains.

• Simon McGrath 6th Feb '11 - 9:31am

  So what is the problem here? An extremely capable and successful man who runs a company which has managed itself well and not required to be bailed out has been paid a lot of money. Due to the new FSA rules he will actually get virtually no cash but will be paid in shares.
  Around 63% of this payment will come to the Government in the form of tax and NI?

  Is £8m a lot of money yes – is it less than he would get elsewhere, defintely.
  No problem I can see

• David from Ealing 6th Feb '11 - 10:11am

  The problem is that while the rest of the country is suffering, one man is getting a bonus which is equivalent to what the average person earns in 308 years. Since Barclays profits are likely to be halved, there is no reason for a bonus here. The fact that the bulk of it will be paid in shares is irrelevant. The man’s salary allows him to live very well. The shares are simply his pension – and this comes at a time when the pensions of the rest of us are being hit.

• Simon G 6th Feb '11 - 11:18am

  I’m getting rather bored with Barclay’s going on about how they didn’t need taxpayers’ money to bail them out. One of the main reasons behind the collapse of RBS was the fact that they paid far too much for ABN Amro. Why did they pay so much? Because there was a rival bidder. Who was that rival? Barclay’s. If Barclay’s had won that battle, they would be in a far worse position than they are now.

• toryboysnevergrowup 6th Feb '11 - 2:13pm

  I’m sorry Mr Oakeshott you are so far behind the game on this you really need to think seriously about how well you are doing your job. The battle on this was lost a while ago when Vince and others caved. The FSA’s remuneration code was issued before Xmas and there was nothing in it to stop bonuses like this. Osborne and Cable even pulled out of threatned meetings with the major banks and so missed their chance to get over how their message, whatever that my be. Game set and maych to the bankers – and Diamond is really just taking the mickey now.

• toryboysnevergrowup 6th Feb '11 - 2:14pm

  I’m sorry Mr Oakeshott you are so far behind the game on this you really need to think seriously about how well you are doing your job. The battle on this was lost a while ago when Vince and others caved in. The FSA’s remuneration code was issued before Xmas and there was nothing in it to stop bonuses like this. Osborne and Cable even pulled out of threatned meetings with the major banks and so missed their chance to get over how their message, whatever that my be. Game set and maych to the bankers – and Diamond is really just taking the mickey now.

• toryboysnevergrowup 6th Feb '11 - 2:20pm

  If Mr Oakeshott really wants to try and have an impact could I suggest he starts making a noise now about measures to address tax advoidance (e.g where exactly is Mr Diamond taxed on his gains) so he might conceivably have some effect in getting a smidgeon of LibDem policy into the Budget.

• greg Tattersall 6th Feb '11 - 3:01pm

  Well done to oakeshott for standing up to the banks.The lib dem part of the coalition must stand up and defend ordinary and decent taxpayers who have bailed out the banks.These same banks think their industry deserves taxpayer money when things go wrong but can eat all the profits whe things go right.What utter contempt these bankers have towards the decent taxpaying public.

• Simon McGrath 6th Feb '11 - 10:09pm

  @Greg ‘The lib dem part of the coalition must stand up and defend ordinary and decent taxpayers who have bailed out the banks’ er, which bit of barclays not being baled out don’t you get?
  @toryboys – Diamond is paid here by barclays which means his tax would be deducted at source.
  @Simon G – you mean it is barclays fault that they decided ABN Amro was too expensive so RBS paid too much? Surely barclays were just being prudent – there was presumably a price the deal was sensible at and they decided it had gone above that level. Sounds as though they know what they were doing.

• toryboysnevergrowup 7th Feb '11 - 10:24am

  Simon McGrath

  I don’t think so http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/13/bob-diamond-employed-barclays-subsidiary

  The whole banking system including Barclays was bailed out by the tax payer – you don’t seriously want to argue that if RBS and HBOS hadn’t been supported that this wouldn’t have left a very big whole in Barclays balance sheet.

• Simon G 7th Feb '11 - 2:53pm

  Simon McGrath

  I think you may have misunderstood my point. If RBS had not put in their final bid for ABN Amro then Barclay’s would have overpaid for it. Just not by as much as RBS did.

• toryboysnevergrowup 9th Feb '11 - 9:39pm

  What an interesting thread given subsequent events – Lord Oakeshott is to be commended for doing the honourable thing and he clearly has decent intentions.