Following the announcement on the amount awarded to RBS's Chief Executive, Stephen Hester, as a bonus, Mark has been commenting on the matter on a range of media outlets including Radio Five Live, Sky News, Radio 4 and Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show. He wrote today the following article for prominent political website, ConservativeHome.

As MP for the City, I have never slavishly defended the level of rewards in financial services which are often disproportionate and, in the current climate of austerity, seen to many as ludicrously out of balance (click here). Nevertheless....

Like most Conservative MPs, only a few years ago I cannot imagine that I would have been open minded to the notion of government interference in the remuneration of privately owned companies. However, Vince Cable announced to parliament yesterday afternoon that the coalition government will rapidly move towards legislating to give shareholders control over the ‘excesses of capitalism’ and clamp down on the ‘rewards for failure’. Perhaps more than any other, my own constituency, the Cities of London and Westminster, benefited from the...

The following article by Mark appeared in today's Telegraph: Does it really matter if Sir Fred becomes plain Mr Goodwin again? Watching senior political leaders this week falling over themselves in casting to the winds the fate of the disgraced former Royal Bank of Scotland Chief Executive you could be excused for thinking that no issue in public life was more critical. Don’t be fooled by the grandstanding. Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband know in their hearts that the dispute over the award of a knighthood to an erstwhile Master of the Financial Services Universe...

So here we go again! Yet another ‘last chance saloon’ Eurozone crisis conference. Maybe, just maybe, this Friday’s summit will be the game changer that financial markets so earnestly desire. In truth, I am still not convinced, in spite of coverage to the contrary, that Angela Merkel has the domestic political capital to drive forward fiscal union. Her electors may warm to the imposition of Germanic economic discipline on southern Europe, but the inflationary consequences of ECB money-printing provide...

Recently at lunch in my constituency, I found myself seated next to a native partner from one of the two Chinese law firms now operating in London. During our conversation I made some passing reference to the ‘global economic downturn’. This was greeted with a wry smile. ‘Back home’, he said, ‘we call it the North Atlantic recession’. What we so easily forget amidst the West’s doom and gloom – where the Euro teeters...