Don't bank on that bonus

I can't help but admire Barack Obama. Ok, he's having a few problems settling into Government (and I know how he feels on that one) but his decision to cap the bailed out banks executive pay at £350,000 is morally the right thing to do.

He's absolutely right to say it's shameful that these bankers were rewarding themselves for the near catastrophic collapse of the global financial system and the resulting credit crunch that's hit so many families and hard working small businesses.

I've seen it in Hull. Atlas Holiday Homes has a long and proud history - a successful firm that for 30 years had a credit facility with Barclays.

That was until they decided to take it away last December even though the company had a full order book way into March.

At the time Barclays Chief Executive John Varley told the BBC that firms and households will have to wait another two years before bank lending goes back to normal.

It's a good job we didn't wait two years to bail out the banking sector to the tune of £37bn, isn't it?

That's why we set up our Go Fourth Facebook campaign ‘No Ifs No Buts - Pass on the Cut' to pressure the banks to pass the interest rate cuts in full for customers and businesses.

Many of these banks were bailed out by this Government but Barclays preferred to sort out their own refinancing package with Abu Dhabi and Qatari investors.

Mr Varley said at the time: "Our ability to do what our shareholders would expect of us would be compromised if Barclays was nationalised."

Translation = we want to carry on giving out healthy dividends and wallet-busting bonuses. Last year, they posted profits of £7 billion.

But on 30 August 2007, Barclays was forced to borrow £1.6bn from the Bank of England sterling standby facility, which is made available as a last-resort when banks are unable to settle their debts to other banks at the end of daily trading.

So we bailed out Barclays by giving them a credit facility! And what did Mr Varley get last year? A bonus of £1.45 million whilst Barclay's President got ten times as much - £14.8m

Obviously we can't touch Barclays as we don't have stock in them - yet - but we can have a say on the others - especially RBS.

So according to the Times, they're "considering" paying out hundreds of millions of pounds in bonuses to their bankers and traders even though we had to bail them out to save savers, homeowners and businesses.

RBS has already decided to scrap bonus payouts at board level as part of its bail-out conditions, but it can still make bonus payments to those below board level. In 2007 they pad out £1.83 billion, mosty in bonuses.

An RBS spokeswoman said that on the question of bonuses, "no decision has been taken yet."

Good - so let's help them make that decision.

We pumped £20b into saving RBS and now own 68% of the shares. If they pass those bonuses on in full, it will be a slap in the face to the businesses forced to close because they're couldn't get the lines of credit extended, to the families struggling to remortgage.

RBS will decide in the next few weeks what level of bonus - if at all - they will pay out to the bankers. So I want your help.

I intend to stay very vocal on this but I want to hear what you think we should do to reign RBS in - and it doesn't matter if you're not a Labour supporter, I still want you to hear from you.

We're all shareholders in this bank so send me thoughts about how we can protest. I also want to hear from small businesses and people who've been refused credit at RBS. Either send me a Facebook message at our No, No Buts group or leave a comment here.

There's no excuse - no ifs no buts - give up the bonus.