What costs £250 for
every man, woman and child in the UK? Responding to an analysis of bonuses
by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which found that city bonuses have
doubled in the last seven years to £28 billion in 2008, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘These figures
are simply staggering. Sixteen billion pounds of city and finance sector
bonuses adds up to more than £250 for every man, woman and child in the
country.
‘Creating a new class of super-rich people, cut off from the rest of us, was
wrong before the financial crisis. Now we can see that the fat cats were paid
these huge amounts to construct a financial system so insecure, the tax-payer
has had to find billions to bail it out. It now threatens to bring down the
jobs and homes of ordinary people across the country.
‘At the very least there must be a complete change in the pay structures of
banks and financial institutions in return for all the help they are
receiving.’ Fat chance.
