Alistair Darling turns up the pressure on UK banks
It has been revealed, by "secret sources", that Alistair Darling has this week requested the attendance of the chairman of the remuneration committees of the U.K.'s four largest banks at a meeting. The meeting will be held in number 11 Downing Street sometime this week at which point Alistair Darling, and potentially Gordon Brown, is expected to place more pressure on the UK banking sector and remuneration packages. So what exactly can we expect to happen?
How strange that a "secret meeting" has suddenly been revealed to the press in what is fast becoming commonplace in the UK government, convenient leaks to increase the pressure on the UK banking sector!
This has become something of a boring and long saga, the UK government attempting by hook or by crook to rein in UK banking remuneration packages in order to curry favour with UK voters.
While UK bankers have suddenly been demonised by the UK government, it is easy to forget that the authorities have received literally hundreds of billions of pounds in taxation from the banking sector, both in corporate tax and personal tax, over the last 20 or 30 years. Each enormous bonus or lucrative remuneration package means more taxation for the UK government from a sector which has been something of a cash cow in the past.
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