Even by economic standards Hester’s £1m bonus is unworthy
by Chris Dillow

RBS’s award of a £963,000 bonus to Stephen Hester has provoked anger. A chart of stock prices shows one reason why.

In the last 12 months, RBS’s share price has underperformed the market; it has also underperformed two of its three main peers – HSBC and Barclays but not Lloyds.

Insofar as Hester’s job is to raise the value of RBS for the tax-payer, he has failed in the last 12 months.
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2 Comments   ¦   Published at 3:10 pm, 27th January

by Sunny Hundal

The Department of Health is planning to bar independent organisations such as BPAS from offering abortion counselling to women in an already-agreed “stitch-up”, I can reveal today.

The plans are in place even though Nadine Dorries lost her vote in Parliament last year to stop organisations that provided abortion services to offer counselling.

by Duncan Weldon

Amid the usual barrage of cutting the 50p rate, slashing capital gains tax and further deregulation (not so much a growth strategy as the usual shopping list of free-market policy demands) Nick Clegg is once again talking about raising the personal income tax allowance to £10,000.

But what impact will it have?

by Sunny Hundal

I cannot help but admire the ferocity and energy behind Ken Livingstone’s bid for London. The campaign team have been organising phone-banks, leafleting events and walks around London with clockwork regularity for months.

But Ken Livingstone is still being complacent and isn’t stepping outside his comfort zone. And if he wants to win – I think he has to do that.

by John McDonnell MP

Many millions of Indians now stand to be driven towards poverty and hunger, as the sudden removal of import tariffs is likely to have a devastating effect on farmers – suddenly finding their markets swamped by European produce.

This is one of those rare times I agree with Peter Mandelson on globalisation.

by Richard Murphy

Stories abound on the fact that the UK supposedly has state debt of £1 trillion for the first time. This however is not true.

Over the last few years the UK has issued debt as shown below totalling about £560 billion.

by Guest

I’ve noticed some curiously suggestive language being used by Cameron and his crew: that people who are paid benefits “earn” that money. That people who are paid benefits ought to start “paying back society”. That those who pay tax ought to be riled at others being paid benefits.

Never, more than of late, have I felt so sidelined, so belittled, so very offended by that notion that I should feel guilt at my situation.

by Duncan Weldon

At 9.30 this morning we’ll get our first look at GDP figures for the last quarter of 2011.

They will almost certainly be very close to zero – and whilst the political debate will be shaped by whether they are just about negative or just about positive, they won’t (barring a really unexpected result!) tell us a great deal we don’t already know.

by Left Outside

I don’t think Labour really know that the game has changed. The move to fixed term parliaments means Ed Miliband find themselves in a totally different position to someone like Cameron circa 2005 or Blair in 1994.

But they still seem to be stuck in the old way of campaigning.

by Guest

Years ago Patrick, a sad old man drinking and lost from his family was evicted from social housing for being an annoying drunk. We argued that he was vulnerable because he had a tendency to self harm.

The Authority deemed the risk low. We explained to him why this was the end of the line.

by Jon Cruddas MP

We have seen the government turning to pension funds as a source of capital to fuel the economic recovery through infrastructure investment.

Combined with the agenda for ‘responsible capitalism’, it is clear that the way pension funds invest is no longer, “a minority sport”, but a matter of acute national concern.

 

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