Gordon Brown

  • 16 Dec 2009 at 11:05 AM

Able Was I, Ere I Saw Gordon Brown Beat Me To The Punch

By John Shazar

sarkozy.jpgThe French will simply not be outdone on matters of making Europe the most inhospitable place on earth to be a banker. Fresh from declaring victory over the wicked Anglo-Saxons and their lasseiz-faire banking cabal, France now says it, too, will impose a huge one-time tax on banking bonuses, just like the British said they’d do last week.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said that they, too, would take half of what the banks pay their employees this Christmas, thank you. The move is no surprise, given the Wall Street Journal op-ed from a few weeks ago where British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and le Petit Napoleon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, called a one-off tax on banking bonuses “a priority, due to the fact that bonuses for 2009 have arisen partly because of government support for the banking system.”

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  • 09 Feb 2009 at 3:27 PM

Big Bonuses Boil Brown Before British Bank Boss Bashing Begins

By Equity Private

You sort of knew it was percolating anyhow over in the UK, but it seems to have come to a boil (ahem).

Barclays announced a top-level review of its bonus structure on Monday, amid a growing political clamour in Britain over rewards paid to bankers in the midst of the credit crunch.
Gordon Brown, British prime minister, said he was “angry” that Royal Bank of Scotland – a part-nationalised bank – was preparing to pay out £1bn ($1.5bn) in bonuses. Other ministers urged bankers to forgo their rewards.
The start of the bank bonus season has provoked a wave of anger towards bankers in Britain. On Monday the former bosses of RBS and HBOS will be grilled by MPs on how they led their institutions to the edge of collapse.

After Dick Fuld and the SEC we find it hard to imagine anything would be more entertaining, but we haven’t seen Questions to the Prime Minister in a while.
Barclays to review bonus policy amid clamour [The Financial Times]