Barclays Bank Directors fiddle while Small Businesses Burn

Our banking friends Barclays posted record annual profits of £11.6 billion today which, helped by the governments credit crunch busting efforts are up a staggering 92 per cent on the previous year. Bonuses all round then.

Yep across the group as a whole, Barclays paid out a staggering GBP 2.7 billion in bonuses, for our American friends thats USD 4,600,000,000! Lets put this in perspective. Thats enough to give every family in the UK a one off payment of about £160, enough to launch four space shuttle missions, enough to pay for 14 new hospitals to be built, or for 16 new schools. In bonuses... yeah. And we were promised that big bonuses were a thing of the past...Hah!

Unfortunately new figures show UK banks are still refusing to lend to small businesses in desperate need of finance. Some viable businesses are going to the wall for want of a few thousand pounds working capital. Two out of three businesses have approached their banks for capital and been turned down, forcing them to fund their short term borrowing with credit cards ... which of course inflates the bank profits even more. Hmm... do I sense a pattern here? Business as usual in Fat Cat Britain I think.

Mr Algius Chairman of Barclays said that the bank would be judged by “how we lend and how we pay”. We are watching Mr Algius... We are watching!

PS: It has just been pointed out to me by email that not all Barclays staff got bonuses since 2500 branch staff have been sacked.