Though fares will dominate London news today, bankers’ bonuses have been a big story as well this week. Massive bonuses are being announced that will lead to renewed revulsion but too little concrete action.

The Standard has an article from Ken Livingstone today on this subject.

“The only reason any bank at all is making money is due to taxpayers’ direct and indirect subsidies here and abroad,” he writes. “The financial sector was saved by money we stumped up. Banks now benefit from a subsidy that the miners could only have dreamed of. The gluttony of the latest bonuses is not justified.”

He also criticises the approach that has been adopted from City Hall:

“The political course that has been adopted in London since the recession began, where the Mayor has been a constant voice for the most privileged and a defender of the worst of “masters of the universe” bankers, banging the drum for hedge funds and insisting that the rich should pay no more tax, is exactly wrong.

“When George Osborne, Boris Johnson and co insist that spending is slashed, that people work longer but their pay is frozen and their fares must rise, we ought to contrast it with the generous subsidy handed to the bankers that is turned into bonuses and payments to shareholders.”

Read Ken’s Standard article here.