Bankers used to synonymous with boring. They used to be the most dull people on the high street, and by dull mean dependable, stolid, trustworthy. The most uptight, emotionally constipated and risk averse character in Dad's Army was a bank manager.
If something looks too good to be true, it is. If someone tells you they can conjure money from thin air, they're lying. The City of London has been both too good to be true and seemingly magically producing money for several decades, and following the latest round of revelations about bankers' slavering greed, the game, I hope, is about to be up.
The BMA may have lost some face but the losers will be the general public if Lansley succeeds in pushing top doctors to choose between NHS and an emerging but attractive private sector. British doctors are passionate about the NHS and serving their patients.
When the history of 2010 is written, two apparently unconnected events will hog the headlines, bankers' bonuses and MPs' expenses.
There have been tales in Family Law circles recently of difficulties arising between ex-couples when one half works for an investment bank. Given the fabled salaries and bonuses of investment bankers, I found these stories a little odd, until one of my old clients got in touch with me last week.
When I first started visiting the Occupy London camps at St Paul's and Finsbury Square, what struck me most were the mixed messages. The camps are not short of creative people who come up with dozens of different slogans. But therein lies the problem for me.
Bankers' bonuses are in the news again. Actually so are Network Rail's and the people who do student loans. Give it a week or two and that extra fiver I gave my cleaner for doing the fridge last week will be under scrutiny.
Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester has broken his silence after waiving a near-£1 million bonus by urging the bank's staff to "prove critics ...
We need to resist our innate desire to blame and to hate. It's not how we got to here that matters; it's what we're going to do about it now that we are.
Bankers' pay is too high and needs to be "corrected", the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland Sir Philip Hampton said today. But Sir Philip said t...
So: did Fred Goodwin treat the British people as he would like to be treated himself? It seems unlikely, unless he's some sort of financial masochist, and his extremely generous pension firmly quashes that idea.
With bankers' bonus season in full swing, and thanks to relatively recent European rules, we at least get to see exactly the sort of pay deals being awarded to the top bankers in the City. RBS chief executive Stephen Hester's bonus, which he eventually turned down following public outrage, will be followed by a series of other bonus announcements in the coming weeks.
Everything in moderation, isn't that how the saying goes? If a week can be summarised by its headlines, this week it was everything in moderation except bonuses and fast-food. The remuneration packages offered to Britain's fat cats are hardly a new topic of contention, but RBS chief executive Stephen Hester has become something of a poster child for the subject, making the announcement of his annual bonus a must-debate topic whichever side of the argument you fall and a juicy bone for our politicians to fight over.
A bid by 104 London investment bankers to get €50m (£42 million) in unpaid bonuses began at the High Court today. The individual claims brought ...
In these tough economic times we need to convince the wealthy that they have a responsibility to give. This country is seeing a growing divide where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The professors I meet don't earn as much as a banker's secretary and yet they are passionate, committed and totally immersed in their journey of discovery. I want to change the rich's mentality toward philanthropy so that they give more. Perhaps new models of giving such as venture philanthropy are a way of convincing the wealthy to give more.
The Archbishop of York has criticised the growing divide between high and low earners and asked whether it is right that bankers "who helped cause the...
A new Banksy artwork has been discovered on the side of an empty building in London. It appeared in the financial district of Canary Wharf in the s...
George Osborne has signalled the UK's desire to move further and faster on banking reform than any other major international competitor.
Lloyds Banking Group is considering withholding up to half of the £1.45 million bonus awarded to former chief executive Eric Daniels for his last yea...
Most people believe pay and bonuses for top executives are "out of control", according to a new study to coincide with a report which described excess...
Average pay in the City of London has jumped by 12% to £83,000 in the last year, with managing directors enjoying a 21% increase to £237,000, a new ...
The picture would be quite different if the top 1% were our country's doctors and teachers. A study by the New Economics Foundation has shown that leading city bankers, with incomes of £500,000 or more, destroy £7 of social value for every £1 they earn. By comparison, hospital cleaners generate £10 of social value for every £1 they earn.
Thousands of students and activists marched through London on Wednesday in protest at rising tuition fees, with no repeat of the violence that marred ...
MF Global say they can't account for $600 million plus of client monies. Their position is "it will turn up". I kid you not. In this day and age any financial company anywhere should know its entire at-risk position and the whereabouts of all monies at the press of a button.
From Notting Hill Editions (www.nottinghilleditions.com) My mailbox has been overflowing in the wake of the economic summits convened to solve the Eu...
