The Guardian reports:
Barclays was tonight accused of making a mockery of attempts to call a truce with the government over “banker bashing” amid fresh expectations that its chief executive Bob Diamond would be awarded a bonus of at least £8m.
After months of talking with the banks, the coalition is yet to announce a deal, codenamed Merlin, under which the industry would to agree lending targets of up to £190bn and show restraint on bonuses in return for less criticism from the government.
The talks with the banks have been led by Diamond’s predecessor John Varley and tonight Lord Oakeshott, a Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, appeared to suggest the bank was making a mockery of those discussions.
“Barclays are shaking hands with government over project Merlin while holding up two fingers to the country with the other,” Oakeshott said.
You can read the full story here.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Aging, Development, and Living at High Altitudes (Oxygen Levels)
The Charge of the Light Brigade - A perfect analogy for the United Kingdom today
Lib Dems miss out by 4 votes in council by-election
New lunchtime concerts for 2025
A looming trade war?
Only 3 historical inaccuracies
Rare 1950s film of Thomas Cubitt's stuccoed streets in Pimlico
David Raw
Nonconformistradical
Matt (Bristol)
16 Comments
Excuse any impertinence, but when is there going to be summat on Lord Carlile?
~alec
http://efrafandays.wordpress.com
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?
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?
Oh quite a lot, believe me!
Tony Greaves
@Red Rag – obviously they do, it is a coalition and there are clearly identifiable gains.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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 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.
What an interesting thread given subsequent events – Lord Oakeshott is to be commended for doing the honourable thing and he clearly has decent intentions.