Gordon Brown’s original idea

Gordon Brown believes that tough action is needed “to clamp down on excessive remuneration for bankers,” reports the Financial Times on its front page. Hot on the heels of a French initiative to put a mandatory cap on bankers’ remuneration trumpeted by Nicolas Sarkozy last week, the British prime minister believes that “pay and bonuses should be based on long-term success not short-term speculative gains”, arguing that banks should claw back bankers’ rewards if performance later suffers. While this may sound remarkably like the French president’s plan to correct the systemic weaknesses that led to financial meltdown last year, the British premier is keen to point out that the French plan, unlike his own, would be “difficult to enforce.” Ahead of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Mr Brown argues the need to safeguard the international status of the City of London. As to a proposed crackdowns on bankers’ remuneration, the author of a book entitled “Courage” argued that “the UK could not be expected to take action unilaterally.”