David Cameron has managed the rather impressive feat of coming across more out of touch with the public than a millionaire banker.
Responsible capitalism (or whatever variation thereon you prefer) seems to be the byword of the moment. Ed Miliband was panned for starting discussion on it at last year’s Labour Party Conference. Then Nick Clegg thought he’d give it a go as the latest “redeeming issue” for his crumbling party. Then Cameron noticed there was a bandwagon gaining momentum that he wasn’t part of, so quickly jumped on.
On the basis that you can discount most of what Nick Clegg says on this (or any) matter, on the basis that a) no one is listening because b) no one trusts him and c) no one believes he has any power, this comes down to Cameron and Miliband- Labour and the Conservatives.
The Tories trumpet that this has been a longstanding crusade of Cameron’s, and yes he did give some speeches on it back in the days of opposition, when he was trying to beat his party into something less instantly repulsive to voters. But judged on his actions, he has been less than inspiring.
The recent furore with RBS boss Stephen Hester’s bonus provides a current and high-profile demonstration. Being a bank largely owned by the taxpayer, not yet having been sold off at a sniff to one of George Osborne’s mates, there is a significant public interest in how much its senior executives get paid. Cameron spent last week telling anyone that would listen that he wanted the CEO’s bonus to be less than £1million, and so when it came in at around £0.96million, presumably thought he’d earned a pat on the back.
I don’t know if he thought there wouldn’t be quite such a storm of public outrage over it, or whether he just thought he thought it would all blow over in a storm of scrounger-bashing. But he miscalculated. Badly. Stephen Hester’s decision last night to refused the bonus made him- a millionaire banker- look more in touch with public opinion than the leading party of government.
Regarding the responsible capitalism debate, there has been a sizable gulf over remuneration. Labour has take the decision to endorse in full the recommendations of the High Pay commission, including putting workers on remuneration committees rather than letting various directors of differnt companies round-robin rubber stamping each other’s paychecks. The Conservatives (and thus the Lib Dems) have shied away from this, and instead encouraged “shareholder activism”.
The problem is, shareholders by all accounts don’t seem to hold much power over these people. Look at the shareholder “rebellion” at the News Corp AGM last year. It didn’t amount to a hill of beans, because near enough a majority share of the company was in Murdoch’s pocket. Some of the shareholders managed to get Tom Watson there to have a stab at him, but that really was only a minor embarrassment to the media mogul.
And now we have a state-owned bank paying what was widely regarded as an obscene sum of money as a bonus to the CEO, and the government standing aside claiming to be powerless. You know that if this was a local government officer, Eric Pickles would be having a coronary. If it was a teacher, Michael Gove would be on the news decrying it. If it was a civil servant, Francis Maude would be doing that nauseatingly slimy thing he does, and if it was a nurse Andrew Lansley would be…well, he’d be too busy crying in the corner regardless, but that’s beside the point.
Strangely, they’ve all been as silent as the grave.
But think, for a moment, of some of the lower level RBS employees. The tellers, the loan officers, the branch managers. None of them will be offered £0.96m bonuses. I wonder, if they were given the choice, just how many of them would have chosen to award the sum to their boss?
