Bozza Attacks Cameron’s Failure of Leadership over RBS Chief’s Bonus

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David Cameron is again facing pressure to explain how the state controlled RBS, of which the tax payer is the majority share holder, can pay its CEO Stephen Hester a whopping £963 000 bonus on top of his £1.2 million salary. London Mayor Boris Johnson and Labour Leader Ed Miliband both called the bonus’ “bewildering.”

In an interview with the BBC Boris said, ”I find it absolutely bewildering because RBS occupies the same status in the economy as Gosbank did in the Soviet Union: it’s a state-owned bank,” he told the BBC. This is not a free-booting, private sector, risk-taking enterprise, this is a state-owned concern that taxpayers have had to step in and bail out. The idea that this is not in the control of the government seems to me to be far-fetched. Stephen Hester is an able man probably doing a difficult job and his contract must have been drawn up, I guess, when he was appointed in 2008 under Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown. I do not know what they were thinking of when they drew it up that way, but it certainly seems to me to be right that the government should step in and sort it out.”

When asked what he would have done as prime minister, he said: “I think a state-owned bank should be run on public sector lines.”

Ed Miliband said, “This is a terrible failure of leadership by the prime minister. For months he’s been promising action against excessive bonuses, excessive pay, and now he’s nodded through a million pound bonus for Stephen Hester. He’s also been lecturing shareholders about how they need to show they can get a grip on executive pay. He’s the biggest shareholder in RBS. He owns 83% of it through the biggest government, and yet he has let this bonus happen. He’s got to come and explain why he’s done this.”

Related articles

• Johnson attacks ‘bewildering’ bonus for RBS chief (independent.co.uk)
• Stephen Hester: RBS boss ‘should turn down his £1m bonus’ says Jeremy Browne (dailymail.co.uk)
• National News: Miliband accuses PM over RBS bonus (coventrytelegraph.net)
• You: Anger grows over RBS chief’s £900,000 bonus (guardian.co.uk)
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