Bankers, Maxwell and the City Gangsters, Letter

Almost 450 executives at Barclays each received annual pay packets of more than £1 million, the bank disclosed yesterday, despite group profits slumping by 30 per cent.

While Jes Staley, the chief executive, received a 32 per cent pay cut to £4.01, the bank's annual report discloses that total bonuses at the bank went up by 6 per cent to £1.58 billion.

Three unnamed bankers were paid more than £6 million, eight were in the £5 million-to-£6 million bracket and ten were in the £4 million-to-£5 million category... Overall, 448 Barclays employees were paid more than £1 million each, up from 399 in 2019.

By contrast, more than 25,000 Barclays employees were in the "under £25,000" category. Staley's pay was 90 times median earnings at the group, down from 140 times in 2019...

(Patrick Hosking, The Times, 2021)

Your pay is cut by 32% and you still receive £4 million pounds. Your pay is 90 times median earnings. What kind of madness is that? 

Maxwell and the City Gangsters

Embrace
Hugh Gerard Byars (b. 1957)
Photo Credit:City of London Corporation [CC BY-NC]

...His 1980s resurrection, the purchase of the Daily Mirror and ascent to become the familiar of presidents and prime ministers commands awe and revulsion. How could so many clever and important people embrace a figure with such a record? The answer, of course, is that which applies today to the oligarchs who make the City of London notorious as the money-laundering capital of the world. A few years ago the US authorities almost removed HSBC's American banking licence because of its dealings with Mexican drug cartels. So fast rushes the torrent of dirty money that no British government dares to impede it by expelling the most conspicuous gangsters.

Maxwell was a smaller player but he profited from the same rules of the game. Everyone who dealt with him muttered behind the arras that he was a crook, yet sniggered as they said it. As long as his cheques seemed good, they drank his champagne and trafficked with his companies. No banker or auditor even noticed when he pillaged his company pension fund.

Maxwell wielded lawyers and Britain's iniquitous libel laws as cudgels with which to silence critics. Those who fought back, notably Tom Bower and Private Eye, deserve memorial applause for their courage and persistence in crying from the rooftops that the "Bouncing Czech" was just that...

Today I read John Preston's book [Fall] with admiration. Yet I feel no animus towards Maxwell, nor even his ghastly family. Like Trollope, I reserve my rage for those who empowered and indulged them, the City's big hitters, same today as yesterday. They have attended the best schools and belong to St James's Street clubs, but their ethics are those of Peaky Blinders.

(Max Hastings, The Times, 2021)

(See Bankers, Jan 8, 2021 and Dirty Money, Nov 24, 2020)

Letters

Sir, Matthew Paris asks for some new clichés. Although not fit for purpose, the systemic deployment of weapons of mass destruction conquered new swathes of territory. Nevertheless, our hearts go out to all collateral damage victims (and their loved ones) during these challenging times.

(Ralph Lloyd-Jones, Nottingham, The Times, 2021)