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UK NEWSBROWN’S HITMAN WON’T SHOOT BANKERS
During Sir Fred’s time RBS got £18million jet 
Sunday January 25,2009 By Tracey BolesGORDON BROWN’S City Minister Paul Myners risked charges of hypocrisy last night for unleashing a stinging attack on bankers’ bonus culture, despite rejecting a move to curb excessive pay rises at failing lenders. An amendment to the new Banking Bill would have let the Treasury put a representative on the remuneration committee of any troubled lender.
This would have given mandarins a far bigger say in setting pay and bonus levels at groups such as HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland that have been bailed out by taxpayers.
Lord Myners urged the House of Lords to withdraw the amendment, then said in a newspaper interview yesterday that too many top bankers fail to realise they are grossly over-rewarded.
His attack came days after Mr Brown vented his anger at Sir Fred Goodwin, the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, and the “irresponsible risks” taken by the bank.
During Sir Fred’s tenure, RBS acquired a £18million private jet to fly executives to meetings.
The 12-seater Dassault Falcon 900EX boasts plush leather seats and a bar and costs about £7,000 an hour to operate.
Last May, as the economic crisis gathered pace, it was used to fly executives on a three-day trip to the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.
An RBS spokeswoman said last night that the bank is now trying to sell the jet.
During the Lords debate on January 14, Lord Myners said: “I argue that the Treasury already has sufficient powers in relation to a bank in temporary public ownership…Generally speaking, pay for directors and employees must be a matter for the banks in question.”
Following his comments, the amendment by Lord Wedderburn of Charlton was withdrawn.
Lord Wedderburn intends to try again to have it included in the Bill in altered form.
The Bill, expected to come into force next month, gives the Government sweeping powers to use public money to prop up failing banks.
In a newspaper yesterday, Lord Myners said that banks had been mismanaged, there would have to be fundamental changes in the way they operate and “the golden days of huge bonuses in the investment banking arms are gone”.
He called on banking boards and shareholders to stamp on the reckless behaviour of the bosses.
The City Minister, who had a long career in the City before he was made Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury, said: “I have met more masters of the universe than I would like to, people who were grossly over-rewarded and did not recognise that. Some of that is pretty unpalatable.
“They are people who have no sense of the broader society around them. There is quite a lot of annoyance and much of that is justified. Let us be quite clear: There has been mismanagement of our banks.”
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BUSINESS SENSE.
25.01.09, 10:40pm
Labour see the Banks as their back-bone.
An institution that's allowed them to spend
freely. They don't attack the Banks because
you,
" don't bite the hand that feeds you ".
The other-side to this is that banks will,
without changes, continue to under-
perform and Nu Labour won't get the
desired turnaround needed before the
next election.
Banks shares won't riase enough to
help with public finances and with no
sign of a recovery in Global stock and
deritives ; .............
its difficult to see where these green
shoots will start. If they don't restart
our whole economy is geared
incorrectly.
The pain will be terrible.
• Posted by: idiot • Report Comment
BROWN’S HITMAN ? HITMAN ? WHAT A JOKE !
25.01.09, 5:49pm
Remember we are talking about Brown and The New Labour Incompetence Party whose watchword is Ineptitude, Duplicity and hollow Rhetoric.
THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT NEW LABOUR PENALISE IS "JOE PUBLIC" IF HE DARES TO OVERSTEP THE MARK.
• Posted by: EmperorMing • Report Comment
HIT MAN? DO YOU MEAN S...MAN?
25.01.09, 1:06pm
Anyone employed by Brown will be a wimp clothed as a socialist nonentity. If anyone thought that Mr. Myners would bring about a dynamic of discipline amongst the decadent and repulsive banking system, they should enroll in the idiot school for posers, as set up by a Mr. Blair when swanning around in university.
• Posted by: bluenote • Report Comment
PARASITES
25.01.09, 11:46am
Totally with Judgmental on this, but after we have killed them we should shoot at least half of the bureaucrats. If they think council tax payers should cover their billion pound pension blunder, then self replicating parasites is the only way to describe these undereducated overpaid morons.
We must have unitary aythorities, and get rid of the district council scum
• Posted by: 106dl • Report Comment
IRRESPONSIBLE OR FRAUD?
25.01.09, 11:25am
And if bank executives issued thousands of multi-million pound bonuses at a time when they had the slightest inkling that the bank may be failing......is that irresponsible or is that fraud?
A public inquiry needs to find out.
• Posted by: stevewo • Report Comment
CONSPICIOUS BY THE ABSENCE (CON BEING THE OPERATIVE WORD)
25.01.09, 11:22am
Not word, not a line, nothing absolutly nil comments, from any banker either justifying their criminal activities or indeed making any sort of an apology!
• Posted by: Judgemental • Report Comment
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