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I have every sympathy for the average bank worker, little or none for the present executive and as for those who were ousted, well hanging`s too good for them as we say here in Scotland.

Bank staff used to be well remunerated, subsidised loans and mortgages, better holidays and working hours than most and a respectable job. But then they used to be proper career bankers who new a bad risk when they saw one and gave good advice without one eye one their targets and bonuses.

All this has been dumbed down. No real bankers exist, just salesmen in sharp suits, and sharper wallpaper if reports are true.

The new executive seem little different, snouts and troughs spring to mind.

As for Gordon Pell saying 260 jobs will be lost when no decision has been made then what hope is there for the future?

I hope the remuneration committee report is thrown out and seriously redrafted before approval.

As Obama said it`s time for change, in this case right here, right now.

Douglas,

Congratulations on a cracking article.

I always enjoy my brief excursions to blogs north of the border but this is an absolute peach.

No sign of any gloves, just telling it as it is.

"not necessarily the kind you would want" makes me wish I was a BP shareholder at the meeting.

More of the same please.

Not surprised McKillop is a BP non-exec... He and John Brown would have got on well. They're two of a kind....

Hester...... just another Goodwin.. Time they appointed someone who actually isn't a banker.

Some of these top managers must be schizophrenic.

They seem to be riding on umpteen gravy-trains simultaneously !

#4 newsjock

They all exchange season tickets with each other.

"I've got four non-executive directorships for you if you can find me a FTSe 100 remuneration committee seat."

"Swop you a vice-chairmanship for two non-executive posts."

A very cosy closed shop involving, probably, no more that 2000 individuals, of whom as many as a dozen may be female.

By the by, they are not "top" managers. Mearly managers who, by virtue of being part of the magic circle, find themselves at the top.

McPillock is just playing the game by the rules we allow them to apply to themselves.

The lack of debate on such a great blog amazes me.

Perhaps all the good folk in Scotland are being bypast by the rest of the world's economic turmoil.

If so, good luck to them all.

#6 Agreed. A Sterling blog (every pun intended).

Once again wider remuneration is bundled together with individual obscenities. Can't say that I ever buy this excuse. This kind of shifty scripting is surely carefully crafted to hold the little-guys to ransom.
Would it be too difficult to put down two motions?
Motion 1: Massive reward for bad management -> result: no.
Motion 2: Modest reward for resilience of minnows -> result: yes.
Genius..!

How many jobs does Sir Tom Mckillop have, I am sure he is on the board of Royal Dutch Shell also. I asked RDS if they still had confidence in him after the RBS debacle and got no response. This chap seems to be within the group of the "2000" Club mentioned in the previous comment. This will sound stupid but if surely the government is now in control of the financial system should it not have a couple of "normal" people on the remuneration committees to refer gross abuses of the system back to govt before they are approved by zombies like Lord Myners.

"The problem it faces in taking that nuclear option on pay is that it could impact on more than 170,000 RBS staff."

Why ?

If this scare mongering from within or are 170,000 stafff used as human shields?

Surely we should be interested in the recovery of the billions of taxpayers money - the civil servants / politicians have, so far, shown themselves to be inept at best.

Unfortunately the only people who will deliver our money back are the bankers - paying them richly to deliver this has to be the best option for the UK as a whole, and the longer we faff around before accepting this the greater the cost will be to all of us.

Whit! Sumewan's gonnae register a NAW vote on the Remuneration / Pension question.....call me ye old'e cynic but the ony fing that makes sense to me wuz whit happened to Fred The Shreds Windaes..last nicht

# 9 I don`t know how many jobs company directors have or need but I do know I needed three to survive when I was made redundant after nearly thirty years with the same company.

Now like Goonwin, I too have a pension of £703,000.

Not per annum but in total.

All I have to do is live until I am 176, no problem there then.

#13

I wonder how the double act of Goonwin and McPillock would go down at the old Glasgow Empire?

#14

Still in short trousers when Empire closed, so I never got to go.

Goonwin and McPillock might be jokers but not comedians, but then again we did save the worst for English acts, ask Mike and Bernie Winters, so maybe they would have got off lightly, at least by Empire standards.

After a week at the "Graveyard" the Commons Select Committee would have been a dawdle.

Mike and Bernie Winters were so bad they even got the bird at the Isllington Empire.

"Sznorbitch" was the real talent in that act.

Surely we should be asking the question....... Stephen Hester, Group Chief Executive of RBS wrote his letter in the local Scottish newspapers on 21st March saying RBS is committed to making available £1.7 billion worth of mortgage lending in 2009............. where is this money right now?
Did RBS get this from Government? When did they get it? What has been done with it pending dispersing to mortgage applicants
( who are being asked to produce at least 20% down payments) and is it the case that RBS are actually making a real profit on this amount by putting it out on overnight call?

£1.7 billion.... where is it right now?

I wonder when Golum is planning to privatise the newly created company United Kingdom Financial Investments (Ltd). You never Can tell perhaps soon all the people in Scotland will find that thier bank and credit cards bare the logo of say Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.
Well I suppose changing the Scottish pound for Dhirrams may be better than Euros.

A magic circle indeed, attended to by headhunters who make a living by placing the same individuals in multiple directorships.

How about an expose of this cosy little club.

You could start with McKillop, Stevenson and Faulds.