Pinstriped Marie Antoinettes: the 'haves' continue goading the 'have nots'

An NHS march passed through London this week. The medics who so selflessly devote their working lives to saving lives were protesting about the Coalition cuts that are threatening front line health services. As they passed the offices of Deutche Bank, staff goaded them by waving bank notes from the windows. Just a joke? Hardly.

When a 'Right to Work' march passed Eton in 1978, schoolboys jeered at them, leading to the 'row in Slough' that Paul Weller turned into The Jam's hit single 'Eton Rifles'. By the 1980s London football fans were routinely flashing wads on the terraces at Anfield or St James Park, a wind-up that was parodied by comedian Harry Enfield with his Sun-reading, Tory-voting cockney wide-boy, 'Loadsamoney'.

                          The likes of Stephen Hester, Josef Ackermann,
                           Fred Goodwin and Bob Diamond have been
                           waving their wads at the rest of us for years.

Somehow I doubt these white-shirted cretins get satire. I suspect their motives were sheer arrogance. After all, the two imbeciles caught on camera are drones of Josef Ackermann. The Deutche Bank Chief Executive received £8 million in bonuses in 2009 and has vociferously defended the bank bonus culture ever since. Other senior bankers, like Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester, are relishing their status as cogs in the City (whether or not these cogs are actually doing any turning at all). Despite his bank being rescued by the UK taxpayer, it is still making a loss. Despite  making a loss Hester is expected to receive a £7.7 million bonus.

To mock hard-working individuals who will takes months to match what these keyboard-tappers earn in a week is repugnant. Apparently the gormlessly grinning guy with the tenner was suspended when the Sunday Mirror showed their photograph to his superiors. That is a small consolation. But in terms of affecting the City's bonus culture, it's business as usual. The likes of Hester, Ackermann, Fred Goodwin and Bob Diamond have been waving their wads at the rest of us for years,

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