The deputy leader of Britain's labour party, Harriet Harman, sent on Sunday the strongest signal yet that the government was prepared to legislate to prevent top bankers receiving bumper payouts for failure.
The government has been mired in controversy since it emerged that former Royal Bank of Scotland chief Fred Goodwin was drawing an annual pension of more than 650,000 pounds, a sum that would take the average Briton 20 years to earn, despite presiding over the bank's descent into effective nationalisation.
RBS reported the biggest corporate loss in British history last week and is now majority-owned by the state. Goodwin, whose ambitious acquisitions are widely blamed for the downfall, took early retirement last October. "Sir Fred Goodwin should not count on being 650,000 pounds a year better off, because that's not going to happen," Harman told BBC's Andrew Marr show. "The prime minister has said that it is not acceptable, and therefore it will not be accepted," she added.
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