Just Be Grateful

Even after thirty years of Thatcherism, with an ever-yawning pay gap to show for it, there is still one man in the world who believes in trickledown economics, whereby the rich do as they please and the poor share in the losses. He is Lord Griffiths, a former sycophant at the old bag's court and now, doubtless on merit alone, the vice-chair of Goldman Sachs International. Griffiths, whose experience of inequality as a child in a Welsh mining village self-evidently excuses his perpetuation of inequality as a pre-cuddly Conservative peer and kleptocrat, said last night that bankers should be allowed to pay themselves whatever they dashed well please and that the British public ought to keep smiling through and be glad of any crumbs that come its way. Griffiths referred to bankers' large salaries and larger bonuses as "compensation" for the trauma of working "in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people". If the British people don't like that, the banks can always go businessing in Switzerland and the Far East, and we would risk forfeiting the presence of the entire social class which caused the present recession.

Gordon's little Darling has responded to the effect that Goldman Sachs were failing to send the sort of signals which Gordon's little Darling could, in conscience, approve. Gordon's little Darling mentioned the importance of sending a clear message that "if you make a mess of things, you don't get rewarded for it". It is fairly likely that Gordon's little Darling will have stopped rewarding the bankers by mid-2010, having ceded the job to George the Progressively Osborne.