REAL scandal MPs ignore

REAL scandal MPs ignore: As Murdoch grilling turns into farce, bankers get £14bn bonuses and IMF warns of euro meltdown

Bankers scoop £14billion bonuses as eurozone nears collapse
Yet still no inquiry as Government fails to tackle them over crisis
Nicolas Sarkozy jets into Berlin today for a summit with Angela Merkel

While Westminster fiddled over the phone-hacking frenzy, the European economy was burning last night.

World financial watchdogs issued an extraordinary warning of a global economic ‘earthquake’ triggered by the failure of many countries to get to grips with massive debts.

To add insult to injury, it emerged yesterday that those largely responsible for bringing Britain’s economy to its knees – bankers and finance workers – have scooped bonuses totalling £14billion this year.

As the Commons hearings into the scandal descended into farce when a protester tried to attack Rupert Murdoch with a foam pie, David Cameron, speaking in Lagos, Nigeria, pledged to focus on issues that ‘really matter’ to people amid fears the Government is beginning to look paralysed by the phone-hacking furore.
Focus: David Cameron said that the government must 'get on with those things that really matter to Britain, which is making sure there are jobs and exports'

Cameron will be looking to find answers to the financial crisis as French President Nicolas Sarkozy jets into Berlin today for a summit with Angela Merkel aimed at forging a common stance on the Greek rescue package as the eurozone lurches closer to collapse.

The Prime Minister, who cut short a tour of Africa last night to return to address MPs, said: ‘It is important for the British Prime Minister and Government to get on with those things that really matter to Britain, which is making sure there are jobs and exports.’

While there were ‘serious questions’ for parts of the media, police and politicians to answer over phone hacking, Mr Cameron insisted voters ‘don’t want us to lose our focus on an economy that provides good jobs, an immigration system that works for Britain and a welfare system that is fair’.

Office of National Statistics figures showed that between April 2010 and March 2011, a total of £13.6billion in bonuses was paid out to workers in the ‘finance and insurance’ sector.

They account for just 4 per cent of the workers in this country, but get about 40 per cent of the bonuses paid.

The size of the massive windfall will outrage millions of hard-working Britons who face a daily battle to stay financially afloat during the economic downturn.

Their finances are under attack from tax rises, pay freezes or paltry pay rises, soaring gas bills, rip-off petrol prices – and no bonus from their boss.

The figures reveal the average finance and insurance worker got a bonus of £12,500. The average worker in Britain, who does not get a bonus, has to work for six months to earn that much.

Some of the big bonus winners even work for banks which are part-owned by the taxpayer.

There are 323 ‘key staff’ at Royal Bank of Scotland who shared a pay and bonus pot of £375million last year, an average of £1.16million each.

By comparison, the rest of the country is being crippled by the first fall in disposable household income since 1981, according to the ONS.

Andrew Simms, of the New Economics Foundation, said: ‘Timidity and collusion on banking reform will be even more dangerous than failure on press oversight. If there is one thing we have learnt, it is that when profits are to be made, self-regulation doesn’t work.

‘Government timidity over banking reform has left us with an arrogant and overly powerful elite in the banks we bailed out who feel able to award themselves huge bonuses, while the public pays the price for a crisis they caused. This can’t go on.

‘Government can still get ahead of the game with the banks, but they must act quickly.’

As the International Monetary Fund warned that the Eurozone debt crisis could trigger an ‘earthquake’ that slashes hundreds of billions of pounds off the global economy, Lord Lamont, the former Tory Chancellor, said Parliament appeared ‘obsessed’ by Rupert Murdoch and wrongdoing in parts of his media empire.
A selection of eurozone countries have poor credit ratings

He said: ‘There is a much more serious crisis growing on the European continent.’

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said at the weekend he was ‘incredibly worried’ that spiralling financial turmoil in Europe and America’s failure to agree on how to tackle its vast debts could drag down the British economy.

UK economic figures due next week are expected to show that the economy is already flatlining. Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, said: ‘We are on the brink of financial Armageddon with cataclysmic events engulfing Europe and possibly even America.

‘It’s time to stop focusing on the soap opera and start focusing on the substance.

‘The entire tribe of SW1 is obsessed with which media figures met with which politicians, but the issue that will directly impact millions of British households is bonds and debt.’

Philip Hollobone, Tory MP for Kettering, said: ‘The phone-hacking scandal is of course a big issue, but it should not overshadow the real concern – the possible collapse of the Eurozone, which will have huge repercussions for Britain.

‘This is something that could plunge the country back into recession and cost thousands of jobs.’

Lord Oakeshott, the former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: ‘These banking bonus figures show sheer greed. Our country won’t believe “we are all in this together” until the Government gets a grip on bank bonuses.

‘Our broken banking system is just as toxic for Britain as politicians and police crawling up to Murdoch. We must get to the bottom of both scandals.’

Max Lawson, from the Robin Hood Tax campaign, which is calling for a new tax on banks, said: ‘The scandal that should be investigated is bankers who are seemingly accountable to no-one and have got away with billions of taxpayers’ money, while this Government has not done enough to deal with it.’

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