Hester's Bonus

Stephen Hester is one of the easiest targets in the UK...isn't he? Yes, of course he is. It's just so easy for Miliband to berate any old banker and easier still to have a pop at one that is attempting to do the impossible with an organisation that the uneducated believe is "owned by the taxpayer". That's just bollocks. The state has a huge stake in RBS and that stake looks pretty miserable just now; but to suggest that "the taxapyer" owns 83% of the bank is crassly idiotic. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that any taxpayer will get any money out of the government's bail-out of RBS so let's not pretend that we, as ordinary tax-paying citizens, will ever have a stake. (cf. Osborne's give away of Northern Rock)

Ed Miliband - Having an orgasm
at the thought of Hester's poverty

Hester shouldn't become the bete noir, either.  I used to know his dad, and he's a nice bloke. Actually, Stephen Hester isn't such a bad bloke either. OK, he's quite rich and all that but honestly, he's not a complete shit. Miliband isn't so thick as to ignore the easy target, though. Hester can't have a bonus and Goodwin can't keep his knighthood. Easy-peasy. Now can I be Prime Minsiter, please, voters? No, you can't. Fuck off you stupid little arse. But maybe your brother could, as he might be able to put together a shadow cabinet that has some credibility by dumping the odious Balls and Cooper partnership and appointing Ken Livingstone as shadow secretary for "anything at all" to prove that the left really can be the left, after all. Although I live over three hundred miles from London and therefore have less of a stake in the capital than any taxpayer might mistakenly believe he or she may have in RBS, I'd just love Ken to do Bo-Jo over in May. But back to Hester...

Hester - Perhaps I shouldn't
have ridden out like this...really

He's a bit fat and quite bald...and maybe just a little bit posh. But so is Julian Fellowes, and the latter got a peerage just for being posh and writing some fatuous crap about what it used to be like to be posh. Hester hasn't done that. All he's done is try to sell the crap bits of RBS and attempt to maintain the good bits. Is it Hester's fault that he's trying to run a bank that the government (Cable) is continuously bad-mouthing, so much so that he hasn't the slightest opportunity to raise the share price in the face of the politically-driven diatribes? Hester is in the ultimate no-win position. He's the CEO of a huge organisation that the majority of the public believe (mistakenly) that they own, drawing a salary that, compared to most CEOs of 'public' companies that don't have a government kicking the shit out of them every day, is quite paltry. Give the man a break.

OK, Hester could probably walk away with a few million and never have to worry again about things like getting the washing done, buying a car, having a mini-break in Paris, getting the carpets replaced or riding to hounds. You know, the sort of things that most of us regard as luxuries. But he hasn't run away, despite the fact that Miliband, Cameron and...er...what's his name...oh, yes...Clegg, want him shamed for even thinking about a performance related bonus which, under the terms of his contract, would be worthless if he screwed up anyway, bearing in mind it would be in RBS shares.

There are better targets for public opprobrium, most of which can be found in either "in the back" in Private Eye or in any of the columns written by George Monbiot.

If Hester resigns in the next few weeks then I wouldn't be in the least surprised and I wouldn't blame him. If he doesn't, then I'll applaud him for hanging on there. Being the CEO of RBS has to be one of the shittiest jobs going...even for £1.2m a year, which is a fraction of what Goodwin earned when things appeared to be easy a few years back.

I used to be rabid old Trot; mellowed into communism and then just good old socialism, but I don't think that whipping Hester is the answer. I have a suspicion that even Polly Toynbee, Simon Jenkins and perhaps even Mark Steel might agree...but I haven't asked. Everyone hates a rebuke...