Prescott Approved 32% Fat Cat Bonuses As DPM

Prescott Approved 32% Fat Cat Bonuses As DPM

Iain Dale 1:15 PM

What a difference nine years make. John Prescott has been railing against bankers' bonuses and says the government should ignore the terms of Sir Fred Goodwin's contract and cancel his pension entitlement. Yet it was Prescott, who, nine years ago approved 32% bonuses for senior executives from the Civil Aviation Authority. Here's the extract from 19 June 2000 from Chris Mullins' diary...

A meeting with JP to discuss the huge bonuses awarded to the board of the Civil Aviation Authority on the basis of some not very exacting performance targets. JP was in belligerent mode. 'Do you agree with this?' he growled. 'No', said I... 'I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't see that there's anything we can do. It's in their contracts. That's the system we've signed up to.' 'I thought we were supposed to be in politics to change systems.' At which JP turned his fire on the officials. What were the workers getting, he demanded. No one knew, but it was probably in the region of 3.5% (as opposed to bonuses of between 28 and 32% for the top brass). Gus MacDonald (who takes JP seriously) said that bonuses of 35% were not uncommon in the industry and that, in any case, the CAA salaries were not large by the standards of the private sector.... Suddenly JP mellowed. He even resisted a suggestion that we should trim. If that's what was in their contracts, so be it.

So, one rule for CAA fat cats, another for Sir Fred. Isn't it strange what being out of power does to one's memory? Or indeed one's interpretation of the law of contract.