Billy Bragg says It's time to call the bankers bluff

Billy Bragg has asked the Chancellor Alistair Darling to call the bluff of RBS bankers who are hoping to receive an estimated £1.5bn in bonuses as a result of remuneration talks being held at Royal Bank of Scotland this week.

"I am tired of hearing financial experts tell me that if we don't pay these bankers what they want, that they will leave the country and work elsewhere.

There is an implied threat there that makes a mockery of the fact that we saved the jobs of these people after they registered the largest corporate loss in British financial history last February. Have they no loyalty to the British people whatsoever?

Neither the government nor the opposition seem inclined to do anything about this situation, so it's time that the tax-payer responded with their own threat."

Bragg has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, to inform him that intends to withhold his tax payment due on 31st January unless the Chancellor uses the veto that he controls as the major shareholder in RBS to limit bonuses to £25,000. Bragg has formed a facebook group NoBonus4RBS to build support for this idea.

"The thought of these international financiers leaving the country with their millions taken from the public purse at a time when the rest of us are being softened up for massive cuts in public services fills me with disgust."

"The bankers are holding us to ransom. It's time Alistair Darling called their bluff."

To join the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=417490570190