The bank is owned predonminetly by the Government but what would you do then pay him £40K a year and hope for the best. Then the person you hire fails the bank goes bust and we lose billions all over a £1million bonus for someone doing a good job. It is ridiculous – pay the man what he is worth. The CEO of Barclays for instance gets almost double what he is paid.

(Also, is it really NOTHING to do with you or I? Who is it who’s paying his salary exactly? Us or the bank? Who owns the bank?)

@GigerPunk Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it and agree with some of it. As a PR professional I thought he did a brilliant job of answering the questions because ultimately his salary has nothing to do with you or I. So why should he answer that. People don’t tend to talk about salaries. His employers shouldn’t have paid him that if he wasn’t of worth it should they? Why don’t we ask how much everyone is worth if that is the case – its pointless. I think he is worth it as he is doing a good job at turning it around. With reference to his bonus – it is his bonus for doing his job well. I think the fact he waived it, was because of the outcry as you say, but I just hope it doesn’t put him off now and we end up losing a very good businessman to the private sector. After all you pay peanuts and you get monkeys!

As for him waiving his bonus becuase he felt it was the right thing to do – do you think he still would have waived it, feeling it was wrong to accept it in these austere times, if there HADN’T been the public outcry there was? That he still would’ve said “No thanks, I don’t realy need it”, feeling it would be better off funding innumerable social welfare schemes/teachers/nurses salaries. Or he would have accepted it and then given it to charity? No, he would have quietly pocketed it and, if it troubled him in the slightest, he would have consoled himself thinking of the supposed “trickle-down effect”.

Yes, he’s doing a hard job and he could go elsewhere if he wanted to and earn even more. But he’s earning silly money as it is and if he does a good job he’s got his reputation MADE as the man that saved the UK economy – He can pretty much name his price after that.

That said, I don’t believe the British public should continue to bend over and stoically continue to accept having our society degraded by selfish people and institutions. I am in a way envious of the French people’s preparedness and ability to stand up for what they believe is right and of their government for at least paying attention every now and then.

If it’s true that Mr Hester “was not a banker before 2008″, I’d like to be a Formula 1 driver. I have no previous experience of driving a racing car but I can drive…. I understand the point you’re making here but I’m not sure it helps Mr Hester’s case.

I totally agree that Mr Hester should not be hounded and certain ‘journalists’ need to engage their brains a little more often but the context is not as simple as a typical private company Board. The bank is effectively state owned and that means accountability. It also means that decisions need to reflect both the needs of employees, stakeholders and society at large.

Making over 20,000 people redundant, generating consistent and significant financial losses and not paying anywhere near the level of dividend required to repay the Treasury really shouldn’t be seen as behaviour to be rewarded.

I used to work in a bank before making my living in the charity world and our bonus model was unbelievably simple and robust. When the bank makes a profit, the staff share in it; if we don’t, there isn’t anything to share…

What’s wrong with that?