As the Prime Minister’s mission to China continues apace Mr Cameron, along with a number of his senior colleagues, has been drawn into an embarrassing row with a number of high profile bankers.
The financial wizards, most prominent amongst them being Sir Philip Hampton of the Royal Bank of Scotland, gave a stark warning to ministers yesterday that, should bonuses be capped or interfered with in any way, the ‘top talent’ will up sticks and move to Asia.
This blog has a radical proposal of how best to approach this sensitive issue; let the bankers go!
The ‘top talent’, who operate from favourable alcoves of the globe where taxes are low and there is an abundance of expensive restaurants and strip clubs, should be allowed to spread their wings and find pastures new if blighty ain’t good enough anymore.
And from these new and sunny groves they can continue to wilfully invest pensions etc in infrastructure etc around the world, unencumbered by the rigid laws of physical geography that seem to so affect everyone else. Most of the investments made by these RBS are abroad anyway and, in a country with of creaking infrastructure and ghetto regions such as our own, perhaps if Philip and his merry band were elsewhere they might feel inclined to invest in us?
One fantastic investment being courted by RBS at the moment is in the exploitation of ‘tar sands’ in the unspoilt wilderness of Canada. A solution to our energy needs described by Greenpeace as “an environmental scandal on a massive scale”.
Tickle your fancy? If not perhaps you might be more interested in investing a bit of your filthy lucre in the production of cluster bombs – a means of murder described as “Shameful and indiscriminate” by Amnesty International who revealed that RBS, along with other high street banks, are underwriting their production to the tune around £800 million.
Whether you fancy these investments or not it doesn’t matter anyway because RBS is, of course, almost entirely owned by you, the taxpayer! A situation that came about when the ‘top talent’ got their investments muddled up by assuming that investing in an 8 bedroom house each for the rural underclass of Mississippi and Alabama was a sure bet!
I think now is the time for the UK to stop trying to remain one of banking classes favoured alcoves. Goodanimalbadanimal for one would rather see a country that produces actual things (yes, you heard me, things), with an economy that extends beyond the boundaries of the M25 and where the partaking in the economic life isn’t an action with, at its core, the kind of inherent and systemic evil exhibited by RBS’s investment portfolio.
Call us old fashioned if you like but it’s just the way we feel!
So, was Sir Philip’s tantrum yesterday a warning to us or a courtship signal sent to the Chinese establishment? China after all seems the perfect place for the ‘top talent’ to go. It has a huge, disenfranchised and minimum wage less strata of poverty stricken individuals who can be put to work along with plenty of excellent golf courses.
Dissenters can be locked up at will and there will be no pesky protests when you decide, for example, to sell arms to African states poised perilously on the brink of war! Winner!
One word of advice though, if the shit does hit the fan again you might want to expect a slightly less benevolent reaction from the powers that be on mainland China. Compared to us softies in the West Beijing can get rather vengeful when upset, just ask Liu Xiao Bo!
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