The smiling chap on the right, his jolly face raised briefly from the trough, is Lord Paul of Marylebone.

A Labour peer, a friend of our beloved PM, and one of the Labour Party's largest financial backers.

He's a multi-millionaire, and so wealthy that, although he sits in the House of Lords, he's not actually domiciled in this country "for tax reasons".

Not so wealthy, however, that he's above gouging the taxpayer (who don't get any of his money) for a few quid on expenses.

In the recent round-ups, we learned that My Lord claimed around 38,000 pounds in expenses. That must have topped the coffers up nicely, eh?

But why, given that he acknowledges to everyone bar the taxman that he's lived in London for 40 years, was it so expensive to get this chap to work?

Ah well, that's because Lord Paul solemnly informed the expenses wallahs that a tiny flat in Oxfordshire - actually occupied by an employee of his - was his "main home".

When this came to light recently, did the good Lord apologise? Did he dip into his virtually bottomless pockets, fish out some small change and pay the 38 large back? Did he fuck.

He stuck to his greedy guns. He admitted that he'd never spent a single night in the flat, but argued that it was “available” for his use: he could have moved his employee out had he "wished to stay there" – but chose not to. What?

In the face of such pathetic denial - a three year old could've explained better where the chocolate buttons had gone - did the House of Lords give him a bollocking, then tip him upside down and extract the cash? Nah. Fuck that.

He's a Lord. And a mate of Gordo's. And a very generous man, come election time.

Sorry to have bothered you, my Lord. You can go now. And off he went, on his merry fucking way, pockets still bulging with our money.

Of course, Lord Pig of Making-It-Up is not alone.

Lord Rennard, Chief Executive of the Lib Dems, worked full time in London and lived in Stockwell in ... er ... London. So naturally, he claimed over 40,000 pounds for a flat in .. Eastbourne. He's been cleared now, of course. Off you go, m'lud.

And then there's our old favourite, the Queen of the fucking troughers, lets hear it for ... Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green.

Remember her? Baroness Udders has lived, with her family, in a low rental Housing Association building for years. However, she also has a small flat in Kent. In spite of never having stayed there, and never even bothered to fucking furnish the place, she claimed that was her main residence. Netting herself a cool 100,000 of taxpayers money.

What do the House of Lords think of that? Nothing. Nothing at all. They're not even investigating her, even though the police are.

So why, why-oh-fucking-why, do all these troughing Lords and greedy Ladies keep getting away with it?

This shit happens, and will keep happening, because, according to the authorities, enforcing the rules is difficult because - you'll love this - there is no official definition of “main home”.

With MP's, the 'main home' rules are clear: it's the property at which they spend most nights. Or more accurately, as the home in which they claim to spend most nights, even if the police provide evidence that proves they're fucking lying, eh Jacqui?

At least MP's have to provide genuine evidence, before being let off scot-free.

For my Good Lords, no such vulgarity. They just have to say where they consider their main home to be. If Lord Troughalot says that he actually lives in a Barratt Home in Harlow, even if he states this while relaxing on a plush sofa in an enormous house in Mayfair, then everything's just fine. Thank you my Lord.

The only troughin' Lord who seems - and who can really tell? - to come out of this with any shred of dignity is Lord Clarke of Hampstead. He also claimed tens of thousands of pounds in “overnight subsistence” despite admitting returning to his home within the London commuter belt, or staying rent-free with a friend. But, unlike the rest of the piggies, he does seem a little sorry about it:

"It’s not within the rules. I’m responsible for my own actions .. If I’ve got to go to the wall and my life is finished in terms of political or public life .. then so be it.”

Bloody hell, an honest and seemingly repentant trougher.

We should have the fucker stuffed, and put on a plinth in the lobby, as a shining example to them all.

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Much triumphant crowing from the Labour party and their PR agency, the BBC. "Bankers Accept Bonus Curbs". Oh, well done, Darling.

Five UK banks have bowed to Labour's showboating and class-envy-based posturing, and agreed to confess that the UK's housing bubble and the massive growth in the public sector and the selling of the gold for bargain basement prices and the increase in teenage pregancies was all their fault. Hair shirts for the bankers!
 
But wait a second. One thing that has been quite clear all along is that Brown, Darling and the rest of the Labour party have no fucking clue how Investment banking works.

We've talked about this before: the way everyone - including some politicians - firmly believes that bankers are presented with enormous sacks, crammed with twenty pound notes on January 1st every year. That's about as naively simplistic as believing that cutting VAT to 15% would make us all buy enormous plasma screen TV's the very next day. Oh, wait..

So, let’s have a look at the rules they've decided upon, and what difference they'll make:

• Minimum bonus agreements should be limited to just one year

Nearly all minimum bonus agreements already are for a year, at most. They're to get people to leave their previous job - and bonus - and take a chance with a new employer. And, in common with much of the bonus mechanism, fuck all is written down. It's all 'my word is my bond' in the City, old boy. And if you renege, you'll lose the staff and not get any more, so it sort of works. So, yes, Gordon, we'll go along with that one.

• Bonuses should be clawed back in the result of a person's poor performance

Yeah. Like that'll work. After you've paid the bonus, and the tax, and the NI, and bought and transferred the shares and share options that make up most of the bonus, you're then going to somehow claw all that back at a later date, are you? Is the taxman going to give back the tax? No. Can you transfer shares out of someone else’s' ownership? No. Will the cash even still be in the bankers' current account? No. Is this idea remotely fucking workable? No.


• Senior executives should have between 40% and 60% of their bonus payments deferred over three years, with at least 50% paid in shares. The same rule applies for other bank employees who make the most risky investment decisions

They already do, for fucks sake. Banks' hardly ever pay 100% cash bonuses. They pay them in a mixture of all sorts of things: stock, options, loans, wine, gold, whatever. Partly to be tax efficient, partly to - guess what - defer the payments over several years.

Does anyone really think that any bank wants to part with a shitload of cash immediately? No, they'll put together a 'package', technically worth the same, but structured so that the banker can't get his greedy paws on it for years. It saves the bank 'real' money and it ties the banker in. Duh!

• Firms will be required to publish an annual report on their bonus payments

What, because they haven't before? What did they do, put them down as Stationary? Charitable Donation? Nah. Banks already publish the figures. How else do you think the tabloids get hold of them, and splash them all over the place with monotonous regularity?

• Large banks should have an independent committee to determine bonus payments

Yeah. That's a good idea. You could call it a Remuneration Committee. Oh, wait..

• Banks must ensure that their total remuneration payments to staff do not affect the underlying financial health of the business.

Yes, because they would never think to do that without this witless legislation, would they? They'd just give away all their cash in a bonus frenzy, then have to go out of business because they didn't keep enough in reserve to pay the bills. Thank goodness Alastair - who's never even run a whelk stall - is there to advise a global organisation how to behave.

For fucks' sake. None of these 'new' rules have anything to do with good governance, financial sense or even prudence. They're all just a lot of pointless showboating, by a party desperately trying to regain the public's favour, and desperately trying to put the blame for the recession on everyone else.

And none of them will make the slightest bit of difference to the way the banks work, and entice and retain the best staff.


No wonder the banks signed up so willingly.


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