An edited version was printed in the Plymouth Herald on 2nd August 2023. My anger generally gets lost in print, so here’s the original:

Last week the Nat West Banking group announced a £3.6 billion profit for first six months of 2023. The other UK-based banks are now announcing similar amounts. 

There’s a context to be understood here. Most crucially, the throw-away reference to “billions” needs to be explained. For example, were you to choose to count to one million at one number each second, 1 elephant, 2 elephants, 3 elephants, etc, it would take you 11.5 days without stopping for meals, naps or pees. That’s how big one million is. More than half of us won’t earn one million pounds across our entire working life.

If you were to choose to count to one billion at the same rate it would take 32.7 years. One billion is one-thousand-millions.

One billion is not a few million. 

Business turnover is not the same as profit.

The profit is the surplus made above and beyond all the costs of the business – wages & pensions, buildings, transport, contractual obligations, advertising – the lot. There would usually be pre- and post-profit figures, except that the UK tax-payer still owns 40% of Nat West, so the company doesn’t pay tax. True, Nat West will pay £190million to the UK Government as a shareholder. That equates to around 5% of the profits, not the 18% corporation tax they should pay.

Taxes are very political. People on the far-Right expose the cost to the tax-payer of help to refugees or those on benefits (asylum-seekers don’t receive welfare benefits). People with more socialist views counter this by exposing the waste of billions of tax-payers pounds on subsidies to the fossil-fuel companies making record profits, and the greater need to increase cash for the NHS rather than nuclear weapons. 

Those who want a smaller State want lower taxes; those who want a welfare state want more say over how taxes are raised and spent. Under the current Government there is only one tax policy – use all the taxes to support and enhance the profits of private companies. Any tax cash that subsidises workers’ health and welfare is seen as a “burden”, whilst any tax deductions for owners of businesses or houses is seen as “legitimate”. 

The Universal Credit additions claimed by 5-million low-paid workers is seen as a benefit, even tho’ it actually subsidises business profits by keeping their workforce on minimum wages. The lower the cost of wages and pensions, the higher the profit rate for the boss and shareholders.

A socialist government would, obviously, use collective taxes from the common purse to alleviate poverty, ensure our health and education, affordable public transport, and address all threats to our wellbeing – prioritising the climate crisis. Today, with all these services cut-to-the-bone and worse it is clear whose side the government is on. 

Which brings us back to the banks. 

The controversy created by some politicians being denied bank accounts, or at least investigated about their affiliations and potential liabilities, has made headline news.

Chief Executives have been forced to resign and no less than the UK Prime Minister has admonished the sector. Not for the excess profits, but for the banks interference in the affairs of politicians.

It is as if politicians should be untouchable. 

The current “scandal” is a distraction that hides the real issues. The same politicians who wish to end the Human Rights Act have demanded that having a bank account is a “basic human right”! Really? What about the right to a roof over your head despite banks raising interest rates to a point where millions can no longer afford their mortgage repayments or rent?

What about the continued investment by UK-based banks in fossil-fuel extraction, Barclays being the largest financier for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea? The climate crisis is fuelled by banks and their political allies. As the world boils, where are the resignations of culpable bankers?

There should be no tears shed for the manipulative politicians or the profiteering bankers. We should remember that UK banks deliberately, systemically, missold over £40bn of Payment Protection Insurance, ripping money out of the hands of the public including many vulnerable people through a period in which no bank CEO resigned.

And Iceland’s Government was the only one, globally, to ensure any banker was jailed for the reckless and fraudulent derivatives scandal that broke the banks in 2008. The bank executives and shareholders were protected by governments, trillions of pounds of tax-payers money lost in propping them up, leading to severe cuts across all public services, forced-privatisation of health and social care, and this seemingly endless Age of Austerity. 

Most bankers continue to pocket billions in bonuses.

The working class, the majority of British tax-payers, those of us without Capital who, were we to become unemployed would have less than 6-months lee-way before long-term impoverishment. We are being shafted by both the bankers and the politicians. 

The record profits recently recorded by banks, fossil-fuel corporations and supermarkets are a direct result of political decisions to allow inflation to run riot. 

And this is not some rabid left-wing statement of bias or bile. Listen to the most recent statement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the international authority with a history of forcing governments to privatise public services: “The rise in corporate profits account for almost half the rise in inflation in Europe over the past two years, with companies raising prices more than the soaring cost of imported energy. “

And all businesses have followed suit, deregulated and unaccountable as a result of  Government Free-Market policies. 

These charlatans continue to get away with it. The question is begged. What will it take to hold the corporate bosses and their political puppets to account?