With Humility

The UK's largest bank has informed a grateful public that its profits more than doubled last year, and that more than two hundred and fifty of its staff were paid over a million pounds. About a third of these unfortunates were based in London, where so many are undergoing hardship because of the cuts. The bank's chief executive, for instance, has suffered a massive reduction in pay, from ten million down to just over six million, and has been joking about the time he spends contributing to global warming. Meanwhile the chairman said that the bank would enter 2011 "with humility", and demonstrated this by sniffling about the Dickensian harshness of George the Progressively Regressive's pitiful attempts to appear at least vaguely interested in stopping banks from sabotaging the economy again. The chairman's predecessor, Stephen Green (probably not that Stephen Green, though I wouldn't care to bet on it) found the Government's attitude towards the banking sector so unsympathetic that he resigned his post to become a trade minister. Thank goodness there's at least one man among the higher echelons who understands what all these poor innocents are going through.