"Alistair Darling attacks bonuses for City failure"

Apparently Apparently Alistair Darling, you know the Chancellor without power or ability, "today criticises the culture of rewarding failure in the City by giving bonuses to executives who appear to have done little to deserve them. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Alistair Darling says that as the country heads into an economic downturn, company boards must be able to justify large bonuses. They should apply the "next-door neighbour test" of whether the payouts would be regarded as reasonable and responsible in a climate when millions of households are struggling with rising living costs, he says. "People get fed up if they see others getting great big bonuses and they can't actually see what they did. It can be extremely frustrating," Mr Darling says."

I don't work in the City but I know several people who do and they work exceedingly long hours in very technical departments doing work that I find all but impossible to follow. They don't get seven figure bonuses but they do get rewarded quite well for keeping the wheels of the City turning. Their basic salaries are quite low in relation to what they would earn outside of the City and they rely on their annual bonuses.

Just remind me Alistair Darling, what is your salary? What about your expense allowance? How much will you get to soften the blow when you leave Parliament? How large a pension will you be entitled to and how much will you have contributed to that pension pot by the time you retire?

I see that Alistair Darling has admitted "that the country is facing a "very difficult year" and predicts that house prices will "flatten"." Flatten, really got a firm handle on the situation haven't you Darling!


To be honest I don't think that a man who was made Chancellor because he could be no threat to the former Chancellor either intellectually or politically, whose lack of ability has been clear to all over Northern Rock, taxing Non Doms and economic forecasting, is in any position to criticise people who are competent, intelligent and hard working. You are a weak and ineffectual politician who like most of this cabinet, including the Prime Minister, have been promoted way above the level of your abilities. As the economy crashes and burns around your eyebrows and the population realise that you and your colleagues have screwed up this country's economy beyond what even I in 1997 believed was possible; then one of the few pleasures that will be left to many of us will be watching the verdict on this government be delivered by the people. Fuckwits the lot of you...